


Scattered Pieces, Like a Broken Symphony

by Novels



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Elio POV, M/M, but it'll get better, mention of m/f sex, movie-verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 18:54:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 46,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21061523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novels/pseuds/Novels
Summary: Elio travels back to his parents' villa during the summer of 1986, arriving when Oliver and his wife are visiting the Perlmans.Drama ensues.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Beautiful people, I have no idea why I'm starting another WIP, but at least this time I am aware I'm doing it.  
Expect tons of angst ahead, but it won't be a complete tragedy, I promise!  
The story is based on the movie and generally ignores the book, although you will find some references to the novel here and there.  
I will do my best to update this regularly but I cannot promise a new chapter every week. I'll try, though.  
I hope you enjoy this first chapter!
> 
> P.S. It's rated explicit because of good reasons that will become apparent later on ;)

_ July 1986 _

It was not supposed to go like this, I thought for the umpteenth time as I went up the wobbly metal staircase that led me into the plane and found my seat. I had planned the trip carefully, gone the extra mile to make sure this wouldn't happen. The man sitting to my left seemed ready to put the brown paper bag tucked into the pouch in front of him to good use. I was not supposed to be on this plane. The flight attendants went through the safety procedures with the usual air of bored efficiency. I sincerely didn't want to be on this plane. I buckled up. The woman sitting to my right took a pen and a crossword book out of her bag and got to work on a puzzle. I could name at least ten different places I would rather be than on this plane. The voice of the captain creaked through the cabin speakers to announce we were ready for take-off. One, my tiny room near Juilliard. The engines roared as the plane gathered speed. Two, my friend Allison's loft, which she shared with another girl named Jenny -- Jenny with a j, as if there was another way to write it. Gravity pushed me back against the seat as the wheels lifted off the ground. Three, my parents' house in Milan. Four, Paris, at Marzia's, even though I knew she was not there. The plane slowly regained a horizontal position. Five, Mafalda's family house in Naples, which I had only seen once. The captain announced we could unfasten our seatbelts. Six, my cousin Franco's hut. I had always wanted to see it, after hearing so many stories about it when I was a kid. The man sitting next to me stood up and quickly made his way to the toilet. Seven, my old high school classroom, which I sincerely didn't miss one bit. Eight, the Lincoln Center, or any other theatre in New York. The woman to my right blew her nose. Nine, the Cinema Alcione in Milan, where I usually watched movies with my classmates. The man returned to his seat, looking ashen. Ten, the berm, or the villa, at any other moment in time but those fated six weeks of three years ago or the next seventeen days.

I sighed louder than I intended and the woman threw me a sideglance. I ignored her, sighed again. It would be a long flight. Still not long enough to avoid meeting him.

Still not long enough to avoid meeting his wife. 

Fuck my life. Fuck American Airlines and their mistaken bookings, I'm afraid we have no availability on the intended flight anymore, would Mr. Pearlman like to keep the current booking at no cost, to apologise for the inconvenience?

Another sigh as I rubbed my eyes, resisting the urge to hit the headrest with my head, forcing my body not to fidget too much. 

I didn't want to think of what was waiting for me in Italy but I was under no pretence that I could refrain from doing it. I'd been spending almost every waking minute of the past two weeks mulling over it, tormenting myself with doubt. Now I was stuck on a plane for the next eight hours with nothing to distract me from the knowledge that I was flying back to my family home and he would be there. 

Not as the whisper of our laughter as the curtains billowed, not as the glimpse of his smile I could still see so clearly in my head, not in the sensation of freshly laundered sheets under my fingers, embroidered with a flowery yellow pattern, but as himself, whole, three years older, wife in tow.

I hated everything about this. I hated the idea of him being there when I arrived, I hated that my parents still liked him enough to invite him and his wife to spend a few weeks with them, I hated the fake camaraderie with which I was certain he would greet me, I hated that a random mistake by a faceless employee was forcing me to return to Italy three weeks earlier than expected. I hated that I could not tell my parents thinking of him still hurt, that the idea of being close to him once more, so close that I could not avoid remembering, felt like I was being tortured by a particularly creative executioner. I wanted to make excuses, hide in our house in Milan until he and his wife left, hide anywhere he would not find me, anywhere we would not cross paths. But my parents had been thrilled by the idea of having me home for three weeks longer than expected and I missed them too much to give up the chance to be with them. Even if it meant pretending nothing had happened between us three years ago, even if it meant playing nice to his wife, even if it meant dying inside, over and over again.

I had thought everything out in my head, rehearsed what I would say ("Long time no see"), how I would touch him (just a handshake, firm, honest, detached. Look at me, I am not affected. What a pleasant coincidence that we were able to meet again after all these years).

He would introduce me to his wife, which I imagined to be as statuesque as he was, to match his beauty. I would shake her hand, say something meaningless but perfectly polite ("We have heard so much about you, I am truly glad we got to meet in person.")

Then I would excuse myself, say something about being jetlagged, about the flight being very tiring, about the sun making me drowsy, anything to retreat to my room and avoid them for the rest of their stay.

Would he be hurt? Did I care? 

He had hurt me much more than this, he had crushed me with a phone call, he had destroyed a world that I was only now starting to accept had only existed in my mind.

He had never been mine, not to take, not to keep. And although I had given him all of me, my body and mind and soul completely surrendered to him, he had refused to take them. His hands had already been full, I just hadn't known back then.

The months after he had called to tell us about the wedding had been the worst of my life. Too ashamed to show my true feelings to my parents, I had put up a front and pretended to get over it in a matter of hours. I had cried while my mother and Mafalda set the table, silently, swallowing gulps, letting the heat of the fire hit my eyes, letting them water and blaming it on the smoke coming from the fireplace, but then I had buried the sorrow deep inside of me as I had dragged myself through the last months of high school, through auditions, getting accepted at Juilliard, moving to the States, to the very city where he lived. It hadn't mattered anymore by then, I had told myself, as I cried silently at night, when nobody would hear me. He had chosen a different life, he had removed himself from mine, and there was nothing that could keep me from moving on, independent as usual. Alone, as usual.

New York was big enough for both of us.

But the knowledge gnawed at me, that he was close enough I could reach out and visit, that we could have been together if only he had waited, if only he hadn't chosen her. That New York and its busy streets and artificial parks and incredible theatres could have been the setting of our story, but was now just another sterile city I lived in, charged with lost possibilities and the threat of running into him while shopping or going to a bar with some classmates.

I hadn't seen him since that last day in Bergamo, when he had stared at me with eyes full of regret, of quiet sorrow. I hadn't heard his voice since that phone call a few months later. 

He hadn't written and I could not find it in me to torment myself further. I could not make myself beg him to call the wedding off, to wait for me, to keep me, hold me, love me.

Because I had loved him. And I wanted to believe that he had loved me, too. And although we had never said it out loud, we had confessed it with every kiss, every stolen touch, every cut-off moan breathed into each other's skin.

But I had refused to beg for it. Love should be given freely, for that is the only way you can believe it is sincere.

I repeated this in my head over and over again, throughout the flight, down another set of rickety steps, onto the tarmac, through passport control, as I waited from my luggage and then as I dragged it onto the small train that would take me to Crema, where Anchise would be waiting at the platform to drive me home. 

Better not to have him at all than to have him like that, uncertainty forever hanging over our heads, the shadow of doubt never truly leaving, the unanswered question 'was I worth it?' forever echoing in our minds.

I had wanted him, I wanted him still, I would always want him, but only if he came willingly, only if he truly wanted me back, and no-one else. And that was no longer an option.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio takes the train to Crema and thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Twoooo. There you go :)
> 
> Enjoy!

I stared at the empty fields as the train clumped along the old rails, stopping every few kilometres in stations almost nobody used. Occasionally, a car would be waiting at the rail crossing, its occupants looking invariably annoyed to have their journeys interrupted by such a menial thing like a train passing. Here and there kids would gather along the rails to wait for the train and make faces at the passengers. 

I let my mind rest for a few blessed moments as I revelled in the monotony that only long stretches of corn, sunflowers and poppies could convey. How I missed the slow pace of my life in Italy, the way space seemed to expand here, and time with it. New York was crowded everywhere, always bustling with people going somewhere, being late, rushing from point A to point B, elbowing their way in. Crema, and the tiny villages around it, seemed to exist in a different dimension, one where space abounded, nature was mostly still untouched, and people instinctively interacted when they happened upon each other. 

I loved New York, its music scene, its creativity, its indifference in the face of alterity. It was the right place to be at this moment of my life. But Italy, this Italy suspended in time, would always be my hometown, the place I would return to when I needed to slow down, when I needed to take a deep breath before I dove back into the frenzy of studying, rehearsing, composing, performing. When I needed to remember. Crema, its fields, its hidden alcoves that seemed to be made for the sole purpose of letting one hide from the rest of the world for a while, would always be my safe haven. It had taken moving to a different continent for me to realise it, but now I treasured every moment I spent here.

So I let my eyes brush over the fields, and the few people on the rough paths that crossed them, and the clear sky, and let them whisper to me of peace, and solace, and the strength I needed to face what -- who -- was waiting for me at the villa.

Anchise was there when I got off the train, gruffly helping me out with my luggage, giving me a brisk pat on my shoulder as a way of welcoming me back. He was never an affectionate man but I could still tell he was happy to see me. I was happy to see him, too. 

"El signur e la signura sono a casa," he told me as we walked to the car. My parents were home. It was just past lunchtime, they were probably drinking their ritual coffee, still sitting at the table outside, under the trees in the orchard.

"E gli ospiti?" And the guests? I said in a flat tone, feigning disinterest.

Anchise scrolled his shoulders. "I g'era anche lur quand che so partì." They were there when he left.

No way I was avoiding them today, then. It would have been too much of a kindness to give me at least a day to enjoy my home, my family, before having to deal with them.

The ride to the villa was a matter of minutes and before I could start panicking about meeting him --them -- I was getting out of the car, and my mother was hugging me so tightly I worried my bones would crack, and still she wouldn't let me go. I held her just as firmly as she went through every pet name she ever gave me, declaiming them in melodramatic tones, in all four languages she spoke, and made me laugh by coming up with a few original ones.

Over her shoulder, I could see my father beaming at us, waiting for my mother to get her fill before smothering me with his trademark bear hug. God, I had missed them so much.

I stayed in my parents' arms for a few blissful minutes, just breathing in my mother's familiar perfume, my father's aftershave. I could hear the telling sounds of dishes clinking as Mafalda washed them in the kitchen, smell the aroma of coffee, so different from the one served in the States, and of grass freshly cut. Cicadas chirruped all around us, birds twittered from the orchard. White noise I was only now noticing after being deprived of it for so many months. 

It was bliss, to be back. I belonged here, under the shade of the peach trees, in the sunny patch next to the pool, at the grand piano in the living room, in the kitchen, snatching food from Mafalda, at the fireplace, getting warmed up after strolling around the snowy fields, and in my bedroom, that for a while had been his bedroom but soon --too soon-- had been given back to me, and then to Rachel, and to Tom, and this year would be given to Alex, who was supposed to arrive just a few days after their departure. Because of course they were staying in my room, the only one big enough to host a married couple. And I would be staying in my grandfather's bedroom, just a wall separating us, and a door with a crack that would remain firmly locked this time.

All these things I had already been aware of and had accepted as unavoidable. The villa only had so many rooms, after all, and it wasn't supposed to matter anyway, because, for all everyone else knew, I had stopped caring a long, long time ago. It was just a minor inconvenience, perfectly inconsequential. I was ready to face this all, I told myself as my parents held me, I was ready to smile and be polite and to be civil, and not to be sour, or moody, or bitter about something that had happened in another lifetime. 

So when my parents finally let go of me and I saw them there, waiting on the threshold of the door for their turn to say hello, I am certain my lips did not quiver, my eyebrows did not shoot up in surprise, my forehead did not wrinkle. My parents' warm welcome had put a sincere smile on my face and I just kept it on, I went on wearing it like a comfy sweater on a cold winter evening, too warm and soft to bring oneself to take it off even if it's time to put on pyjamas and go to bed.

But I felt my heart skip a beat and a heavy weight settle in my stomach as my eyes landed on him for the first time in three years. His blond hair, which I had pulled so many times to bring him close, closer to me, begging for more, unashamed, never ashamed in his arms. His blue eyes, like the sky reflected on the ocean that got between us that summer. His nose, and mouth, and arms, and hands, and legs, and feet. His everything. Oliver. He had not changed at all. He was wearing a green shirt. I wondered if it was the same one he had on when he had left. Did he do it on purpose? Was he mocking me? Could he be so cruel? Could he rub it in my face just like that, look at me, I'm wearing those same clothes and I didn't even notice it, it's irrelevant, another piece of trivia, a fun fact to talk about over dinner, if only our time together could be discussed openly. Look at that, I'm dressed just like our last day in Bergamo, do you remember? When I left you on the platform and took away your heart and your ability to love sincerely. How funny! 

I was still smiling as I reached out and shook his hand, and it felt faker and faker with every second that passed. "Long time no see." So far so good.

He was smiling, too. if felt foreign on his face. It felt like that smirk he would give me during his first few days with us, superior, detached. Polite just because I was his hosts' son. Accommodating because I was nothing more than a nuisance he could quickly get rid of. Was that what I was now, too? Nothing more than an inconvenience? Nothing more than a disagreeable memento of a time in his life he wished to ignore? I loathed it. "Elio, it's been forever!"

His palm felt so soft against mine, his fingers so familiar as they brushed against my skin, wrapped around my hand, shook it firmly. It was the ghost of a thousand touches. I suppressed a shiver, let go of his hand quickly, turned to the woman at his side. I wondered if the smile I was wearing would carve itself a permanent slot on my face, whether I could ever smile again without faking it. 

"This is Sarah." Another handshake, more delicate this time, just as quick, perfunctory. She was a lovely woman. Not statuesque as I had imagined, but good-looking, with a serene air about her. She looked content, indifferent. Certainly oblivious. 

"We have heard so much about you, I am truly glad we got to meet in person, Sarah." I sounded OK to my ears, cordial. I could feel my parents' eyes on my back. Time to retreat.

"I'll head upstairs if you don't mind," I told them. I didn't look at him. "It was a long journey, I'll just take a shower and crash for the rest of the day."

My mother nodded, still smiling. My father was holding her around her waist. "We'll save you some food, just sleep until you feel rested enough to eat."

And in a matter of moments, I was hidden in my grandfather's old room, no smile in sight, supplanted by a weariness that I could feel deep in my bones. I sighed as I sat on the bed, hiding my face in my hands.

Would it ever get better? Would  _ I _ ever get better?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading!!
> 
> Oh, I suppose... you can find me [here](https://tinanovels.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, where I reblog silly things and CMBYN content


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio is alone in his room and thinks -- way too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so I think I should probably warn you guys that this is a rather harsh chapter.  
Nothing bad happens, it's not even too graphic, I think, but yeah.   
The thing is, I spent the past few days thinking about how young Elio would feel when faced with Oliver once more and I decided he would be much less in control than almost forty-year-old Elio. This means that Elio will be a bit more uh... 'erratic' I guess works as a word. Closer to the Elio we experience in the first part of the book, conflicted because he himself is not sure about what he wants, and a bit malicious and demanding, because that's just how he is. And in the next chapters, perhaps a bit more twisted in his thoughts...  
We'll see. I hope you still like the story though :)

I sat on the bed for a long time, or at least for what felt like a long time to me, my face still hidden in my hands, my fingers digging into my skin as I brushed, pressed them across my eyebrows, over my eyes, against my forehead, trying to get him out of my head, wishing I could tear his image out of my brain with my nails, shred it to pieces, scatter them over the ocean as a tribute, as an offering to the gods so that they would grant me peace at last. So that they would spare me this ache I had become so accustomed to it almost felt like part of me, and was at once so sharp, so sharp and unavoidable as it had been three years ago, and I couldn't, not again, bear it and pretend I had no weight on my shoulders. Pretend I was indifferent, pretend I didn't care. Pretend I didn't love.

I hated him then, I hated him sincerely, as I had never hated anyone before.

I wanted to go downstairs and punch him in the face, hit him with the same hand that had touched his skin just a few moments before, hit him with the force of three years of making up for his absence, and his betrayal, and his happiness with someone else as I dragged myself out of my misery by sheer force of will and fake smiles. I didn't care if he was with someone, if my parents saw and understood, if Mafalda saw and told her nosy friends, if his wife saw and was scandalised by the Italian savage that was so gentlemanly at first and barely an hour later was attacking her beloved husband, always so upright and poised, who had never hurt a fly before in his life. I would laugh in her face, you have no idea, lady, what your husband does when you turn your back, what he got up to when there was nobody around but me and the scorching sun above us, you have no idea what he really craves as he lies in bed next to you, spent after having fucked you while thinking about a body you will never be able to match, no matter how hard you try.

Then I would turn to him and I would take in his bleeding nose and laugh because look! I've made you bleed, just like you did all those years ago when we first kissed and I was so elated that it quite literally went to my head. Are we even now, Oliver? Can I have my life, my heart back now, please?

I want to feel again, I want to know something else but sorrow and stifled arousal when I touch someone else, I want to be whole again, so as to give myself away again. I want to be someone else's love, and not just someone else's lover, since you won't have me either way.

I sat on my bed and I was Rodin's statue as I thought all this and felt heady with the rush of emotions running through my mind, and ashamed to be so vengeful, and desperate because I had turned into this person who didn't know how to love anymore and thus settled for resentment, and envy.

But most of all I felt alone. Admitting that, even just in my head, took away the fight from me.

I longed, yearned for someone who would understand me as easily as Oliver used to, someone I could be myself with, someone who would heal my wounds and hold me when memories of loss got too real, too close. I wanted to feel cherished, I wanted complicity. Companionship, the quiet contentment that comes with knowing that you have the right person by your side. I wanted casualness, and sincerity, and honesty.

I wanted what everyone has ever wanted. I wanted to be loved, and I wanted to be able to love back.

I dragged myself into the bathroom and got the shower running, hoping it would calm my stormy mind. 

The journey had tired me, I told myself as a way to justify the mess I had in my head at the moment. I was tired, and worn out, and I had somehow managed to handle meeting Oliver and his wife without making a fool of myself. It was only normal to feel frail and as if I could break into tiny pieces that Mafalda would have to hoover out of the grout lines with that clunky old vacuum she kept in the closet under the stairs. 

And then my eyes fell on a red pair of swimming trunks hanging behind the door and I had to laugh at the irony, because the alternative would be to cry my eyes out, to cry for all the years I hadn't, to cry until I ran out of water and my body turned to dust, crumbled to speckles of skin and bone and was blown away by the breeze of a late Italian afternoon.

So I stared at the same red trunks that I had once defiled, alone even back then but in a completely different way, and barked out a laugh that felt hollow, and ugly, and not like a laugh ought to be at all, but at least was not a sob.

And faced with yet another piece of clothing that marked a moment I could not erase from my mind, and having somehow succeeded in not breaking down in a puddle of tangled limbs and torn up feelings, I resolved that I would be, after all, able to make it through the following three weeks. Not unscathed, most probably, but perhaps still somehow on my feet. I thought, there and then, that if I could greet him with such fake ease once, I could do it twice, and then again for as many times as it would be necessary. And if he wanted to have a conversation, I could talk about music, and about books, and about my friends in New York, and about the weather, and about San Giacomo, and about playing volleyball with a few people, and about going out at night, and about so many other insignificant things that I would drown him in inconsequential information to the point that he would forget what he had set out to talk about in the first place. And if the sight of him with his wife got too much, I could always escape where they would not find me, and be alone.

That, at least, was something I had learned to do well in the past few years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this, more is coming soon!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio takes a nap and then wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update, guys, this is a freaking crazy period at work. Things should be less hectic in a couple of weeks, hopefully.  
I'll try to update again early next week :)
> 
> Enjoy!

When I woke up the sun was still streaking through my window, making the room sparkle where the light caught a few specks of dust that had escaped Mafalda's feather duster. I felt drowsy as I lifted my head just enough to see the alarm clock and register it was almost dinner time. I let it fall back against the pillow with a groan, rubbing my face against the soft cotton to wipe away the sweat that had formed as I slept. I rolled over to lie on my back, spreading my arms and legs wide, chasing the cool spots on the sheet I didn't bother to untuck before falling asleep. It was an unusually hot July, one that would end up being remembered for its unrelenting weather, and even if the window was wide open my room was stifling. For a moment it felt like I was back in my mother's womb, or perhaps like I was a caterpillar in its cocoon, not yet ready to become a butterfly, not yet ready to live its ephemeral, meaningless existence, not yet ready to flap its wings and cause a hurricane somewhere else in the world.

I could hear voices chattering outside, carried into my room by the faintest whiff, more like a sigh the sky could not hold in than a proper breeze. It caressed my naked body, offering a hushed apology for the torrid heat. 

I ran a hand through my hair, found it damp, considered showering again, decided against it. I lay on my old bed a few moments more, a hand resting on the iron frame that creaked every time I moved, the other tracing mindless patterns on my chest. I didn't want to get dressed. Practically everyone in this house had seen me naked at some point in my life, why should I bother? I smirked to myself at the thought, imagined going downstairs in nothing but my birthday suit. Mafalda would squeak and cover her eyes with her hands, my mother would reproach me, my father would be the usual unfazed self. He might throw in a good eye-roll for my mother's benefit but wouldn't do or say much else. And Oliver? How would he react seeing my body, only slightly different from the one he had once used for his own pleasure, just a few years older, more man than boy now? Would he be aroused? Would he have to hide his attraction, avert his eyes, keep his hands in his lap? Perhaps he'd be disgusted, perhaps he'd lunge in front of his wife, the only one who had not seen me naked yet. He'd do it, and he'd say it was to shelter her from the sight, but I would see through him and understand it was because he didn't want to share me with her, he wanted to be the only one to know what I looked like when I shed every unnecessary piece of clothing and let the wind be my only garment.

Fanciful thinking. I dragged myself out of bed and put on my swimming trunks and a frayed t-shirt with the print so washed out you could barely understand what it was. I didn't care to dress up, I didn't want to give the impression I put some thought into what to wear, so I didn't.

The house was deserted on the ground floor save from Mafalda cooking us dinner in the kitchen. I gave her a quick peck on the cheek as I stole a fried sage leaf from the fresh batch she had just put on the counter and sauntered back to the living room. My piano was still in the middle of the room and I felt drawn to it. I ate the sage in two bites and cleaned my greasy fingers on my t-shirt as I sat on the stool, fingers hovering over the keys. What to play? What to play that would not stir unwanted memories, that would not make me ache, that would not make me feel nostalgic?

I settled on a sonata that I was studying with my friend Allison in New York, a light piece, airy and fun. It reminded me of our walks in the park, of long nights spent over scores for duets, of throwing snowballs at each other after passing our midterms. It put me at ease, because my friendship with Allison was easy, had been from the very beginning. It was devoid of complications, sincere because it was born on the solid grounds of a shared passion for music, felt with equal intensity, with absolute, encompassing devotion. 

I let my mind focus on the music, played it with precision, nodded with satisfaction after the last notes echoed in the room. 

"You play beautifully."

I froze on the spot, fingers still resting on the keys. I let them fall on my lap, took a breath, turned towards him. He was staring at me from the door that led to the hallway. He looked so casual, leaning against the doorframe, so at ease with himself. I resented him for that, for not looking half as awkward as I was feeling, for being so in control of himself, for having evidently moved on. 

"Thank you." Curt, without inflection. Perfunctory. I stood up, moved towards the opposite door, the one that led back to the kitchen. I could pretend I wanted to snatch another fried sage leaf, even though I realised I had no appetite. I just wanted to be as far away from him as this house, which normally felt so big but now felt tiny, would allow me. 

He gave me the illusion I could make it to the kitchen, could retreat safely without having to say anything else, until I was just a few steps away from the door.

"Is this how this is going to be, then?"

I could feel his eyes on me. For a moment I considered just leaving the room, ignoring the question. But I couldn't. I turned to face him.

"This?"

He shrugged, made a quick gesture with his hand that meant to encompass the whole room, the two of us, the villa, Crema, the whole world.

"I don't see why it shouldn't." Civil, polite, indifferent. I wanted to be proud of the apparent ease with which I delivered my line, with which I absolved him from having to deal with me, but I couldn’t. Go your own way, Oliver, go live your life, let me be. Ignore me, just nod amicably when we cross paths, then continue on yours and I'll continue on mine. 

He was staring at me and I stared back, unwilling to show how uneasy I felt. What did he want from me? Reassurance that I wouldn't ruin his holiday? His marriage? His life?

I would do it all in a heartbeat if only he'd let me. I'd ruin his perfect life I so despised if only it would lead to me being in his arms again. I would do it selfishly, I would do it entirely for myself, I would do it and I would not regret doing it. But I would pay the consequences of my actions, for how could he truly bear to see me, to be with me, when the very sight of me would remind him of a life he had chosen and had been forced to destroy just to have me?

I am not worth an entire life, Oliver. You have already decided that. You have already chosen the best option, and it wasn't the one with me in it. So what else do you want from me? Friendship, camaraderie? Don't ask me that, don't ask me to pretend we are just friends, don't ask me to get to know your wife. Just don't. 

Because for all I am set on keeping my distance, I don't know if I could ever deny you anything. So don't ask. 

I don't know what he saw on my face, whether he saw anything at all. Perhaps it was my blank stare, so difficult to maintain but indispensable as my last defence against him, that made him desist. Perhaps he was hoping for a different reaction. Perhaps he was just glad we had settled this. All the same, he shrugged again in what I interpreted as acquiescence and went back to where he came, leaving me alone in the room, more alone than ever, feeling bitter for a hollow victory which I realised I had hoped not to win all along.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio has a night out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, new chapter, folks!  
With a bit of action, since it was kindly requested ;) 
> 
> Let me know what you think... and I promise there will be more Elio/Oliver interaction from the next chapter.
> 
> Enjoy!

Dinner was a loud affair. For possibly the very first time, I was grateful that my parents had invited two of the mouthiest couples they knew to stay for the evening. They kept the conversation going, half in Italian and half in English for the benefit of Oliver and his wife, and they did it obnoxiously enough that my silence went completely unnoticed. I didn't feel like talking. For that matter, I didn't feel like eating, or sitting at that table, or listening to our guests debating both the repercussions of Chernobyl and who should win Miss Italia. I kept my eyes glued on the dish in front of me, which I emptied mostly to avoid comments about my appetite. When there was no food left with which to busy myself, I found an interesting piece of orchard to stare at, just behind the ear of the loudest of our guests, so that it seemed like I was at least listening to what he was saying. I very studiously avoided looking at Oliver. He was sitting to my left, at his usual place, and although I could have easily touched him if I moved my foot or my arm just a bit in his direction, it felt like we were miles apart, separated by a wall topped with barbed wire, and with a couple of armed guards on patrol. 

Whose wall it was, I couldn't tell. 

No sooner was the coffee served that I excused myself, mumbled of previous plans for the evening, and beat a hasty retreat which I hoped no-one understood as such. 

I hated that I couldn't stay in my own house without feeling trapped, feeling seen, feeling so exposed. I hated that he had come back and was now occupying every space I had consecrated to his memory. I hated it because where I used to see him watching me with mischievous eyes as we had lunch with my parents in the orchard now I could only see him looking indifferently at our silly guests, and where I used to see him listening intently as I sat at the piano, smiling and playing along when I teased him with my versions of Bach, I could only see him staring at me and asking me if 'this is how things are going to be.' And during these upcoming weeks I was sure he would desecrate so many other places and would erase so many other precious memories that I feared I would have nothing good to remember him by by the time he left once again.

I called Marzia from the phone in the kitchen, made plans to meet her in Crema, and went upstairs to change.

It was so unfair, to have him here and yet feel like he was intruding in my dream. It felt wrong to have him so close and yet not being able to touch him, it felt wrong to wake up and go downstairs and have to pretend that seeing him sitting at the breakfast table was nothing extraordinary, nothing worthy of my attention. It felt wrong that the easiness with which we used to talk was gone, clouded by longing, and missed opportunities, and feelings I so desperately wanted to smother but just couldn't let go of. They were all I had left of him.

When I arrived in Crema, Marzia was already waiting for me outside Le Danzing, smoking a cigarette with a guy that looked way more interested than she was. Just seeing her vaguely bored face made me feel better, more like myself, and I rushed to her to give her a hug, one of those that last forever because you have to catch up for all the ones you could not give during your time apart.

"C'mon Elio, let go of me," she giggled after a while, so I rubbed my nose against her neck to tickle her and then complied. She hit me lightly on my arm, rolling her eyes at me.

"What? I have missed you!"

"Oui oui, me too, Elio, but you didn't have to make him run away." I looked around and sure enough, the guy had disappeared. I shrugged.

"You didn't seem particularly interested anyway."

"Well, it was not the conversation I was interested in." She wiggled her eyebrows and I laughed. Marzia might have looked shy at first glance but was actually one of the most direct, outgoing people I knew. I envied the ease with which she interacted with people. It seemed that tonight she was out looking for some fun, of the kind we had agreed long ago not to offer each other.

The club was full of people dancing and drinking and I recognised some of my old summer friends, people I was still rather fond of. Chatting with them, dancing together, drinking shot after shot of cheap vodka helped me remember I had people to turn to when I was feeling down. I was not alone, I didn't have to be alone unless I wanted to be. And even if most of them had no idea that Oliver and I had been together, no clue at all I went both ways, it still felt nice just to be with them. Perhaps it felt so refreshing precisely because of that. They were not looking at me and wondering if I was OK. They were not waiting for the moment I would fall apart. They were just hanging out with me, telling me about their jobs, their studies, their latest girls. I found myself laughing more easily, smiling sincerely. Marzia was dancing with the guy she was talking to earlier. I was dancing with Chiara's cousin. For a few precious moments, I let my mind rest and just enjoyed the feeling of her body against mine, of other people's arms and legs and hips hitting me as we swayed to the rhythm of Papa Don't Preach and shouted the lyrics at the Dj. She was holding on to me, dancing with her eyes open, staring at me. She had a lovely smile. I didn't think, and I kissed her. For a split second, I thought she would push me away and run but I realised I had just taken her by surprise when she giggled against my lips and kissed me properly. I let my hands roam as we kept dancing and kissing, dancing and kissing. Some of my friends hollered at us and she dragged me closer in reply, making them laugh and whistle in appreciation. I smiled against her lips and pushed her off the dancefloor. We ended up making out against a wall for the rest of the night, people walking past us to the bathrooms, to get some air, to grab a drink without batting an eye. At some point Marzia left with the guy, giving me a wink and a thumbs-up. Following her example, we left as well, ending up on the very same spot I had lost my virginity with Marzia in what felt like a lifetime ago. 

We had sex recklessly, laughing at each other's goofiness, trying to keep quiet even though there was no-one around to hear us, giving and taking pleasure freely. It was simple, uncomplicated, fun. We went swimming afterwards, because it was still warm even if it was almost dawn and because we just felt like it. We were young, and for once, carefree. 

By the time I left her at her cousin's with one last kiss and a 'we should do this again sometime,' the first light of day was already illuminating the sky.

I rode my bike back home, for once feeling tired in a good way, looking forward to sleeping until midday and maybe skipping lunch altogether. That would be a blessing.

My mind was still in a pleasant buzz as I put the bike in the shed and walked up to the house, mostly focusing on getting to my bed to finish the night on a high note. That is why, I imagine, I didn't realise someone was coming down the stairs as I stepped into the house and was caught by surprise when I found myself face to face with Oliver, evidently on his way out for his early morning jog. 

He too seemed surprised to see me, at least for the few seconds it took him to look at me and understand what I had been up to not so long ago. 

For all the fogginess I had been feeling just a few seconds earlier, I could pinpoint exactly the moment Oliver realised what I had been doing earlier that night. His face froze, his eyes ran all over my body, as if to make sure he was not misinterpreting, and for an instant I thought I saw something unexpected in his stare, something I wasn't quite sure how to describe. But then he schooled his face into submission and there it was, the usual smirk, the meaningless, hated smirk he put up when he looked at people and dismissed them at the same time. 

"You had fun tonight."

I shrugged. "Just the usual night out with friends." Why was I lying?

"Some very good friends, I see." Of course you see, you used to be the one to put this look on me. I bit my tongue not say it out loud.

"Always the same, it's good to catch up." Meaningless, meaningless talk.

He hummed in agreement, noncommittal, then took the last few steps to get to the ground floor, placed a pat on my shoulder, once, twice, as he passed by me.

"Rest well."

I was dismissed, apparently. 

I watched him leave the house, the place on my shoulder burning where he had touched me. 

I stayed there, on the third step of the stairs, until I could not hear his steps on the gravel anymore.  Then I shook myself out of my trance and went back to my room. 

I felt drained, once more, and only wished I could sleep my weariness away.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after...I guess?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, this chapter kinda wrote itself and ended up focusing on moments I hadn't considered before, so the thing I thought I would write about in this chapter will happen in the next. Cryptic much? :'D
> 
> Enjoy!

Sleep would not come. No matter how spent my body was, no matter how much it longed to rest, no matter how hard I squeezed my eyes closed, sleep would not come. I lay on my bed and tossed and turned until I felt some sort of desperation deep in my bones, that sort of exasperation towards myself that demanded I move, I change room, or perhaps attitude, or maybe my entire view of life. 

The spot on my shoulder where he had touched me felt as if it belonged to someone else. It felt foreign, branded. I was hyper-aware of it. 

He had patted me on the same shoulder that he had massaged three years earlier, 'just to show you that I liked you.' 

I could feel each of his fingers, his palm as they had touched my body, a thin layer of fabric the only thing that kept our skins apart. A careless touch, meaningless. Or perhaps not meaningless. I just didn't want to understand what it said.

I ached, alone in my bed, for him to touch me as he used to, tender, passionate, caring. I wanted to feel worshipped by his hands once more, I wanted him to cover my whole body with his and just smell his skin against mine, breathe it in. Breathe us in. I wanted his mouth on mine as he swallowed my moans, and his cock deep inside me, and his hands, his fucking hands, holding me together, holding me and never letting me go.

I was hard. At that moment I despised my own body, which would react to memories of us together when all I wanted was to bury them somewhere deep enough I would not have the strength to dig them up. I was hard, and exhausted, and all I wanted was to find some solace in my sleep, because wanting anything else would only call for heartbreak. But I touched myself anyway, because even if I was being incoherent, at least there was nobody around to judge me but myself. 

So I touched myself, and I tried to keep my mind from wandering, and I tried to remember what Chiara's cousin felt like under me, and I failed magnificently when I heard a door open in the other room and someone moving in the bathroom and I knew, I just knew he was back from his run and I prayed, begged to whoever was out there listening that he would open my door, willingly, or hesitantly, or maybe just by mistake, and upon seeing me like this his resolve would crumble and he would take me again, make me his once more, make me him once more.

I came then, turning my head to muffle a moan into my pillow, spilling all over my stomach, feeling high on misery and completely, utterly spent. How much can you hate yourself for wanting someone you know you cannot have anymore?

The room was silent. I could not hear a sound from the bathroom. Was he still in there? Had he heard me? Please, let him have heard me. Please, let him have not.

As I drifted to sleep, I thought I heard him walk to my door, but I knew it must have been just a figment of my imagination.

*

I woke up just a couple of hours later, feeling sticky and miserable. The evidence of what I had been up to before falling asleep was sitting on my stomach and I felt repelled by it, by what it represented. I loathed the power he still had over my body, I hated that, even as I tried so hard to keep him out of my head, my mind still looked for him, still waited for him, still relied on my memories of our time together to find pleasure and release. How many people had I fucked while thinking of him? How many people had I dismissed because they were too different, or perhaps too similar to him?

I scrubbed myself clean in the shower, harshly, using no gentleness to my body. I rubbed my skin, scratched away all the traces of come from what little hair I had on my chest. I let the water run hot, almost too hot to bear, wishing it would wash away my shame together with the grime of the previous night. I stayed under the spray for a long time, just letting it hit the back of my head, my shoulders. Could it erase his touch from my skin? Could it purify my body? Baptise me, dunk me in holy water, let me be born again, free from sin. 

*

When I joined the breakfast table, everyone was already there. I placed a kiss on my parents’ cheeks, as I always did, and took my seat. 

I wondered if they could sense my discomfort, if they suspected I wished to be anywhere but here.

"Did you have fun last night?" asked my father, looking at me over the top of his newspaper with a glint in his eyes.

I shrugged, giving him a neutral answer. "Same as always, it was nice to catch up with my old friends. Crema never changes."

"Oliver has told me so much about Crema. About the ice cream shop, and the piazza with the bars, and the club where you can dance until early morning. I've been dying to come here and see all the places. Is it really that special?" 

It was the first time I looked at Sarah properly, my eyes roaming all over her face, her body. She had a bright smile that reached her eyes, making tiny wrinkles appear at their corners. She was beautiful, I thought, and it rang like a death sentence in my head. 

I shrugged again at her question, but I tried to make it less indifferent. "I guess it is when you've not grown up here." She had a light, airy laughter. It felt like a golden chain as it fell to the floor, a ripple of clear notes. I wanted to hate her, I wished it with all myself, but I found that I couldn't. I hated what she represented, I loathed looking at Oliver and seeing him with her, but I realised I could not hate her. She had no fault, she did not know, and she did not deserve it. I surprised myself smiling at her, my head resting on my hand, half hiding my curved lips. 

"You should take her to Le Danzing, Oliver. She'll have fun." 

If Oliver was surprised I addressed him directly, he didn't show it.

"Yeah, Oliver, you should really take me dancing! So I can see by myself how many hearts you have broken that summer."

She was mocking him, I realised after I almost choked on my milk. It was just a saying, mere banter. It hurt so much that I thought I would never catch my breath again. Don't bother going to Crema, just look at me, truly look at me, to have an answer to your curiosity.

I could feel his eyes on me. I wished he would look away.

I turned to Sarah after a heartbeat, a second of silence that risked becoming awkward. She was the only one at the table who didn't know.

"You know, the entire town fell for him at first sight. We thought he spent every night with a different lover, he was out so often, but in the end, we found out he was just hiding at the beach for hours, sitting alone on a rock, thinking deep thoughts the way a true philosopher would." Until we actually got together, then you did spend every night with a lover, didn't you, Oliver?

"You did?" she asked her husband, disbelieving but still smiling.

It was his turn to shrug, to put up a smile that did not reach his eyes. "It's a very suggestive place to think. I found it very inspiring. But I did go out a few times, made some good friends."

"You've never really talked about them, Oliver." Another shrug. 

"And did you two hang out?" She was talking to me again. That question felt like being run over by a car that hit me while reversing and then hit me again as it drove away.

"We did. Elio is really good company." He answered before I could. What was he doing? Why was he saying that? How could he talk about us so lightly? Was I just 'good company'? Was that all I was? Really? 

I could not look at him for fear that he would see through me in a heartbeat.

"Elio, tesoro, will you play for us later? I miss your music so much when you are not here." My mother to the rescue. I loved her a bit more at that moment, as I agreed to play something in the morning. 

"Could we listen, too, Elio?" Sarah asked. Blissful unawareness. I envied her.

I nodded. "Do you have any requests?" I asked the table at large.

Heads shaking, 'play what you prefer.'

Well then.

I sat at the piano right after breakfast was over. I used to think of performing for my parents as a chore, but I had come to love it in the past couple of years. I loved the simplicity of it, their appreciation no matter how inaccurate the execution was. Even Mafalda joined us that morning, interrupting her work in the kitchen for a few minutes.

I had decided what to play as I finished eating, didn't even second-guess myself, so as soon as everyone was inside I placed my fingers on the keyboard and let my bellicosity, my impatience, my insecurity, my irritation play for me. My suffering, too, even though I didn't want to admit it. I wanted to hurt him the only way I could, the only way subtle enough that I would get away with it.

I was playing at my mother's request but I was not playing for her that morning.

He was sitting on the sofa with his wife, behind me, so I could not see his expression. I didn't need to. I remembered everything, and so did he. He had to. This was his soundtrack in my head, the symphony that played in the background whenever I thought of him. 

It was a relatively short piece and it was over soon, in a rush, in heated strokes and blunt movements. 

They all clapped at the end, my mother even placed a kiss on my head.

"What was it?" asked Sarah.

"It's young Bach, dedicated to his brother." Oliver answered before I could, again.

I turned to look at them. She was evidently surprised and looked at me for confirmation.

I nodded, stared at Oliver.

"Elio used to play this for me back when we -- back then."

I realised, right there and then, how close he had come to say it out loud, in front of his wife. To his wife. Who was looking at him with an expression I couldn't quite decipher. Surprise, mixed with the faintest hint of doubt? Was she starting to suspect her husband had secrets she never thought he would keep from her? Could something so irrelevant, such a small slip of the tongue, be what would actually make her notice?

I didn't know her well enough, I had no idea how much she knew about Oliver. I knew nothing of the things that mattered. But there was one thing I knew, as I put up a perfunctory smile and retreated to the swimming pool with a deck chair and my walkman, wishing I could mute my mind, get a moment of peace for myself: my father had understood I was not over Oliver. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day continues...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright people, buckle up 'cause we're going on a wild ride.  
It took us 6 chapters to get the train starting but here we go... up the hill of the rollercoaster (is that even how you call the uphill part before the fall??).
> 
> Seriously, though. This chapter has been sitting on my file for two days. I am hugely unsure about it. I do hope you like it, but yeah... fingers crossed.
> 
> On a completely different and frustrated note, academic writing has f*cking ruined me. I mention a book in this chapter and when I typed it in I automatically added the in-text reference. Next chapter will be an essay on how the pairing should be called Olio, because c'mon! That's just too cute and too evocative for Italian speakers. 
> 
> Enjoy!

I was about to doze off by the pool, Haydn playing softly in my ears, when a shadow covered me. I squeezed one eye open. Sarah was standing there, wearing a giant straw hat and holding a beach towel, sunscreen, and a book. She looked hesitant.

“Do you mind if I stay here, too?” 

I shook my head, gestured with my arm that she could pick the place she liked the most.

She settled on a spot of grass that looked plushier than the rest, covered it with her towel, sat on it and started applying the lotion liberally.

Her movements were mesmerising. She must have felt my eyes on her because she gave me an apologetic smile and said she needed to use tons of sunscreen because her skin was so delicate. 

She wasn’t used to all this sun where she was from.

I asked where that was, because I didn’t want her to think that my gaze had been anything but the amused look of a person used to sit in the sun without having to worry about getting sunburnt.

Vermont. 

Sounds nice, I’ve never been there. 

You could visit sometime.

A noncommittal sound. End of conversation.

She opened her book, started to read.

I kept staring at her from the corner of my eye.

She was beautiful. Not overlty so, not of that sort of beauty that makes heads turn. But beautiful nonetheless. She had lush brown hair, and freckles on her nose, and her curves made me think of warm embraces. 

Out of nowhere, I thought that I wouldn’t mind having her in my bed. No, not just that -- that I would _like_ to have her in my bed. She had an alluring air about her, she seemed to whisper in my ear of softness, and protection, and carefree fun. 

She would make a fine lover, simple, innocent but with a touch of spice. I wondered, before I could stop my train of thought, if that was the sort of sex Oliver was getting, whether he liked it enough. Whether it was enough. 

And then, unable to stop the mental trainwreck from happening, I wondered what it would be like to have them both in my bed, together. 

I had to bite my cheek from letting that thought go too far, far enough that my loose trunks would have no chance to hide it.

In search of a distraction, my eyes fell on Sarah's book, so I asked her what it was.

She surprised me when she said it was [_The Female Man_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Female_Man) by Joanna Russ.

"I'm only halfway through it but it's such a good book."

I had read it a few months earlier and I told her so. It was her turn to look surprised.

"I would have pictured you more as a fan of classic literature."

"Oh, I read anything that I can put my hands on, really."

"Even feminist lesbian science fiction?" 

"Even that, yes."

"Ah, the male gaze," she said, shaking her head in mock disappointment.

I chuckled at that. "You have no idea."

She looked at me curiously and for a moment I thought she would ask what I meant, but eventually she decided against it. She shook her head again, smiling, and went back to reading.

I tried closing my eyes again, keeping my mind off any dangerous thoughts. It was a wonderful day, the wind was blowing warm against my skin, the sun was hight in the sky. Cicadas were singing all around us, birds were twittering in the orchard. Orle of paradise. 

I kept my mind resolutely blank and let the familiar sounds lull me to sleep.

*

Sarah woke me up when Mafalda called for lunch and we walked back to the house together.

I saw Oliver staring at us from where he was already sitting and I wondered what was going on in his head. Was he happy I was not avoiding his wife? Did he think I was doing it for him? Did he feel guilty? Suspicious? Jealous? Would you imagine that, Oliver jealous of me. Or perhaps Oliver jealous of his wife? I mentally scoffed at myself as I took my usual seat. Sarah placed a kiss on Oliver's lips. 

I looked away too quickly. I hoped he didn't notice.

*

After lunch, when everyone was back to whatever they had interrupted to eat, I felt like working with my guitar.

I was back at the pool and Sarah had followed me there, as well. I could feel her eyes on me as I sat on the stone bench and strummed a few notes, tuning the instrument.

I played a short round of chords and she laughed. It was the theme of _Happy Days_.

"How many instruments do you play?"

"Only piano and guitar, but mostly piano, really. Guitar is my minor."

"You are at Juilliard, right?"

I nodded as I started playing a simple tune just to keep my fingers busy.

"Oliver never mentioned it. You could have visited us, we don't live that far. He should have invited you."

"We haven't really kept in touch after he left, you know." I shrugged, tried to mask that I knew exactly where they lived, that more than once I had been tempted to walk up to their door and ring the bell, just to see the expression on Oliver's face when he saw me on his doorstep.

"Well, it's a pity, for real. You should have dinner at ours when you are back to the States, it's the least we can do after your parents have been so kind to us."

"You shouldn't feel like you owe them. It's just their way to show people they like them. Oliver was my father's favourite student, I assure you. Still is." And mine, too, but this she didn't need to know.

She sighed, shifted a bit on the towel. "It is so peaceful here. I don't know why Oliver was so reluctant to come back." I looked up at her, my fingers stopping on the strings. I had an idea or two. 

"He didn't want to come back?"

She shook her head. "The only reason he told me your father had suggested it was that he left his letter on the table one morning and I read it. I bugged him for weeks before he accepted. But I mean, why would you say no to a holiday in Italy? I thought he would be thrilled. He always looks so melancholic when he talks about Italy." 

I didn't have anything to add to that. I knew why Oliver hadn't wanted to come back, it was the same reason why I hadn't wanted to, either, when I'd found out they'd be here. Too complicated, too painful. Was Oliver trying to protect himself? Was he trying to protect me? 

Was there hope?

"You know, I was joking earlier when I said I wanted to know how many hearts he's broken here, but I have wondered for a long time whether there actually was someone while he was here." Don't ask me that, just don't. But she just had and she was waiting for an answer.

"I-- Sarah, this is a question you should ask him."

"I did, I asked so many times. He would just make a joke of it." She was staring at me with assessing eyes. "But I think I've got an answer just now, really. If there had been no-one you would have told me. And he would have, as well." She said it like an afterthought, as if she had always known deep down.

I wanted to run away from this conversation. She had no right to come to me to find answers her husband wouldn't give her. She had no right to trample over my memories, to ask me to edit them, censor them so she could find her peace of mind. She had no right to demand the truth from me, either. I didn't want to give it to her, it was mine and Oliver's only to treasure.

"This is really a conversation you should have with Oliver," I told her again, trying to keep my voice flat. "It's his life, his past. It's not right I talk about it." 

She didn't seem to hear me.

"Why did he fall for her, Elio? Was she beautiful? Funny? Intelligent?" She looked clinically curious rather than upset, as if she didn't like not knowing something that eventually was so trivial, had no repercussions on her life. But it could have. It could have. 

I didn't answer her, had no idea how to answer her. I just sat there, clutching my guitar, unable to find words good enough to satiate her curiosity.

"Why can't you tell me, Elio? Are you protecting him?" 

Him who? She meant Oliver, of course, but who was I protecting, really? Myself? Oliver? The memory of two young men that had found the stars but could not keep them? At that moment, I realised, I was mostly trying to protect her. I didn't want to be the one to tell her the truth. I didn't want to ruin her life, to disgust her, to make her hate him. She seemed happy with Oliver, or at least content. I didn't have it in me to ruin it. Not even for myself.

So I looked at her and answered the only way I could. "There weren't any girls that summer, for what I know."

And when she looked at me, the only thing she could find in my eyes was sincerity. And behind that, if only she had dug a little deeper, an ocean of heartbreak and too much love for a person who would not want it -- could not want it anymore.

"But..." She wanted to insist, to get to the end of it. I could see it in her eyes that she was already dissecting what I had just said. I didn't want to be there if she managed to put the pieces together. I wouldn't be able to outright lie to her face. 

"Look, I meant it when I said that the entire town fell in love with him in a matter of days, but I've never seen him truly interested in any girl. There were so many rumors, as it is bound to happen in such a small town, but nothing was ever confirmed, and I wouldn't believe it in any case."

I stood up abruptly, grabbed my stuff carelessly. 

"If you want to know anything more than that, you'll have to ask Oliver. I can't tell you anything else."

And I left her there, on the edge of the pool, knowing she would think I was being rude, but conscious that the alternative would be far more devastating than she could imagine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To continue with the lazy rollercoaster metaphor, we are now at the highest point of the tracks, during that instant where the train stops and you stare into the abyss (and the abyss stares back...?) and wonder why the hell you decided to get on the train in the first place.
> 
> We're gonna fall in the next. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then they fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am just going to leave this unusually long chapter here. You'll find me hiding in a dark corner waiting for your reaction.
> 
> Enjoy!

Sarah and Oliver didn't show up for dinner. My surprise, or perhaps my relief, must have shown on my face because my father smiled knowingly and told me they were having dinner in Crema, just the two of them. 

"Una cenetta romantica," I said rolling my eyes, trying to diffuse the tense cloud of things left unsaid that was gathering over the table. My mother was still in the kitchen, helping Mafalda with the food. It was only my father and me. 

"You played beautifully this morning," he told me. I shrugged, looked away. "And yet it felt like you were wrestling a bit with the piano." I didn't want to look at him but I couldn't avoid it.

I considered lying, saying I didn't know what he was talking about, that the piece called for that sort of execution, anything but the naked truth. Still, I ended up nodding silently, looking away, conceding his point. I could never lie to my father. I traced the pattern of the tablecloth with my finger with focused attention, just to have something to do with my hands. My father didn't push. I talked. 

"I used to -- I played Bach for him once, before... I was just showing off, changing the style, embellishing the tune, and he knew I was teasing him but he listened. He stayed. That was when I realised that maybe it wasn't just me who--" I couldn't say it out loud. I had never actually admitted we had been in love in so many words, not to my parents, not to my friends, not to him. Not even to myself.

My father nodded, gave me a sad smile. He understood. "So why the Bach today?"

Why the Bach. Because he came back, because he ignored me, because he got married, because, because, because. So many reasons. "He said I was good company." 

"Ah, and that hurt your feelings." 

I looked at my father, who stared back at me from over the rim of his glass of wine with understanding eyes.

"I know, I really do, that he couldn't have said anything more to his wife, but... I wasn't just good company. We weren't just having fun. I don't believe it, I'll never believe it, not even if he tells me to my face. And hearing him say that..." I shook my head. I didn't know how to express the mix of betrayal and sorrow and rage I was feeling. "He could have said nothing. It would have hurt less."

"So you played Bach to take revenge?" My father was trying to hide a small, amused smile. 

It made me smile a bit, too. 

"Maybe. And to make him remember." I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it. My father's expression turned pensive.

"I don't think he's forgotten, Elio. And I suspect you haven't either."

I didn't want to admit it, so I said nothing. The silence felt like a confession.

"Look, Elio, I told you once that how you live your life is your business and I stand by that but let me tell you one more thing: there's nothing wrong with changing your mind. There's nothing wrong with making a promise to yourself or someone else and then backtracking because things have changed, or you have changed. It is true for him just as much as it is true for you. Don't ever think something cannot happen anymore just because right now you don't see a way it could. Don't forbid yourself the luxury of hope." My father always looked calm, sure of himself, but as he said all this it seemed to me as if he was talking not only to me, but to himself, as well.

"Sometimes hope is the only thing one gets. Hope and nothing real to hold on to."

"Well, in that case, you'll have to decide whether it is enough. And if it is, then hang on to it, and if it isn't then let it go, move on and start looking for what you really want."

"I only know I want to stop hurting this much, Dad." I whispered it, to myself more than to my father. "I want to be as far away from him as I can, I want to stop looking for him in every person I see on the street."

He nodded. "Then get away from him. Ignore him, forget him. Force yourself to stop wanting him. Every time you think his name, shake your head, strike it through in red. Don't let yourself think about the past. But before you actually do all this, imagine doing it and ask yourself 'will I be happy once I have succeeded?' Elio, will you be happy when you have nothing left of him but dusty memories you'll only revisit in your weakest moments? If you think ‘yes, yes, I will,’ then by all means do it, but if you are still in doubt, then think it over some more and ask yourself again, and again, and again, until you can either say ‘yes’ and mean it or admit that you’ll never be able to. And then you'll see where that knowledge takes you.”

“But Dad, he’s married.”

“And to a lovely woman, for all that matters. I am not saying it would be easy, if you decided to act upon your feelings. People would get hurt. You’d get hurt, most probably, and there would be nothing I could do to help it. But in the end you’d come to treasure the pain, because it would have taught you to rejoice in its absence. Love is easy, Elio, too easy. That’s what makes life so complicated and yet so worth living.”

My father very rarely spoke like that. He usually preferred to talk around a subject, to discuss it without ever mentioning it. He used irony a lot, to diffuse any tension. He quoted the Greeks, and the Romans, and Fabrizio De André. But he had cut to the core of the issue this time, he had not shied away from it, and I felt seen, so terribly seen, but not judged for being too weak to let Oliver go. And perhaps those were the exact words I needed to hear, and my father had uttered them for precisely that reason.

“I don’t know what to do.” 

He gave me a long, reassuring stare. “You’ll figure it out, Elio. You’ll figure it out when the time is right.”

I remembered something he had told me three years ago, right after Oliver had left. Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot. He was right, as always. This time, nature had found my weakest spot through the honest words of my father.

*

I was out on the balcony when they returned. The tell-tale sound of wheels on gravel alerted me before they actually came into view and I stepped back from the balustrade, not hiding but not even clearly visible in the darkness of the night. I took a drag from my cigarette as I leant against the wall. It was eerily quiet. Everyone but us three had long gone to bed. There was no wind to make the trees rustle, no owls hooting in the distance. The only sounds were the chirping of the cicadas, so constant at the villa that it passed almost unnoticed, and their steps as they made their way up to my old room.

I heard them talk softly as they came up the stairs, hushed whispers I couldn't make out. They fell silent as they crossed the hall and disappeared inside their room. I didn't want to go back to my grandfather's room and hear them through the thin wall that separated us. I didn't want to hear them chat softly, perhaps laugh. I didn't want to hear the bed creak under their bodies, the hushed sounds of two people in love finding each other under the sheets. Would they have sex in the same bed that once was mine and Oliver's? Would they make noise? 

I couldn't stand the thought.

I put out the cigarette and took a deep breath. My father's words kept swirling in my head. Would I be happy if I stopped wanting him? I threw away the cigarette butt with an irritated gesture, tried to follow it with my eyes as it fell into the darkness.

I wanted to let him go. God, how I wanted to let him go. 

The house suddenly felt suffocating, as if it were closing down on me. Too much had happened here, too many memories were enshrined in these walls and furniture. 

I had to run away from all this. I went outside, through the orchard, which should have felt unfamiliar in the night but only felt like it was trying to shelter me from the rest of the world, to the spot on the beach where he used to sit. And once there I prayed, begged for an answer I couldn't give to myself.

Would I be happy if I stopped wanting him? I tried to think 'yes' just to see how it felt in my head. Lie, lie. Why couldn't I lie to myself? Why couldn't I believe that I would be fine, I would be happy if only I let go of a part of myself? His part of myself? 

Why couldn't I resign myself to never being whole again? 

I smoked cigarette after cigarette, the red dot of the cinder beaming in the darkness like a miniature lighthouse for lost fireflies.

Come to me, cheer me up, dare me to catch you as I used to when I was little and Mafalda would give me a jar to take you inside, into the light, to see that you were truly just a bug, and not a teardrop that the sun had left behind because it was sad it had to go before the moon arrived.

I stared at it, huge in its full form against a black, shimmering sky. 

_ O mia diletta luna. E pur mi giova _

_ La ricordanza, e il noverar l’etate _

_ Del mio dolore.  _

I snorted. Quoting Leopardi by myself, staring at the moon in the middle of the night, mulling over a world of impossibilities and lost love. Pathetic, I thought. I am pathetic and of course Oliver would not pick me. I was bound to be like Leopardi, crippled not in my body but in my soul, so intent in remembering the past that I forgot to live in the present.

"Elio."

A whisper that felt like a shout ripping through the darkness. Had I been thinking so loud that he had heard me call out for him? Can a bleeding heart beat fast enough that it cannot be ignored, dismissed as a noise the house makes, perhaps a small animal scurrying under the windows?

He was just a few steps away. The moon threw an ethereal shade over him, making me question his presence. Was this a ghost? Was this a memory that had escaped my mind and was now roaming the shore, forever waiting for my return?

"Oliver."

I said it just as quietly, barely a sound leaving my lips. He nodded, came to sit next to me.

"Do you mind?" and echo, ringing through years of regrets. I shook my head. 

We stared at the water in silence, sitting side by side, not touching. The last time we had been here together we had fucked against the rock, careless, desperate. It had been our last day together in Crema. Was he remembering it, too? How could he not?

"You've been talking to Sarah."

He still wasn't looking at me. I shrugged, took a drag. He intercepted my hand, took the cigarette, did the same. 

"No girls that you knew of, uh?" 

I turned to look at him. "That I knew of."

He snorted quietly. "You know it's true."

"What else was I supposed to tell her? 'Oh yes, he did have someone while he stayed with us and guess what? It was me!' It's not my confession to make." It felt harsh, and bitter, and judgemental. I didn't take it back.

He looked at me, then, staring at me for a long moment. "No, no, I guess it's not."

We went back to staring at the water. The silence felt awkward, loaded with things we didn't dare to say. 

"I used to love coming here at night."

"I know. I remember." If only you knew just how much.

He nodded. "Me too, Elio, me too."

I snapped my head towards him. "No." 

"No?" 

"No, you don't get to do this. You don't get to come back, to take your wife into my home, to sleep with her in the bed we once used to share, and then find me in the middle of the night and tell me you remember. You have no right to do this." I was furious. I was heartbroken. 

"Elio--"

"Don't. Just don't." They were his words and I spat them back at him.

He looked at me for a moment and there was surprise in his eyes, and sorrow. 

“You know, I didn’t want to come back.”

“Yeah, Sarah told me.”

“No, you don’t understand. I didn’t want to come back with her. I didn’t want to take her into this place of my memories where you are everywhere. But I have wanted to come back ever since I got on that damned train in Bergamo.”

I snorted. “And what good did that do? You got married anyway.”

He looked hurt. “I had to.”

“You really didn’t.”

“It was expected of me.”

“Expected from you, of course. You’ve always wanted to be good, haven’t you?” Mocking, cruel. I thought I was above all that.

“I don’t deserve this.”

“Well, I don’t either, but still you made the choice for both of us, right?” My words were blunt stones carved by ancient cavemen, inadequate weapons against the tide of pain and longing I was feeling. They still hurt.

“I did what I thought was best for everyone.”

“No, Oliver, you did what was easy, what was convenient. And the funny thing is, we could have been together if only you had waited a few months more. I would have come knocking on your door, I would have begged you not to get married. I would have found a way to make you change your mind. Or maybe not, who knows, but at least I would have tried. But you got married while there was an ocean between us and not a thing on this earth I could do to stop you. And you made sure you were not here to pick up the pieces when you told me. So no, you did not do what was best for everyone, and you should stop telling yourself that just to feel better.”

“You were so young--”

I barked out a laugh, and ugly, hollow sound I hoped never to utter again. “How many more excuses have you got? I was too young, too inexperienced, too naive. None of that, Oliver. I was only too in love, and you weren’t, and I am still paying the consequences of that.”

I felt breathless. 

“Me too.” Hushed. So quiet that for a moment I thought I had imagined it.

“Me too what?”

He looked at me straight in the eyes as he said it. “I was too in love.” He looked defeated. “I still am too in love.”

Three years and a wife later, we had managed to admit it. The irony. The tragedy. I felt shattered by his admission.

“Why are you telling me this?”

His lips stretched into the tiniest smile and I knew what was coming. “Because I thought you should know.” Because I wanted you to know.

I could feel my defences come tumbling down, outer walls, inner walls, the barricade. I watched them fall and wondered what price I would pay for giving in. 

But as he reached out and touched my face with his hand, and as his eyes searched mine to get permission, I couldn’t deny myself the kiss that had been a ghost on my lips ever since he had left me on an empty platform three years earlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't hate me for interrupting here the chapter. I'll update so soon you won't even notice the wait!
> 
> Oh, those poetry lines are from Giacomo Leopardi's _Alla Luna_ and they roughly translate:
> 
> My beloved moon. And yet I rejoice  
The memory [of my past] and remembering the age  
Of my pain.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating sooner, I ended up rewriting this chapter about three times -.- Three is the charm, they say, right?
> 
> There is a sentence in Italian in this chapter; I have provided a translation at the end of the page since it is quite important to understand it to get the full meaning of the scene. 
> 
> Enjoy!

How much can a kiss contain? Is there a limit to the emotion it can hold and, if you surpass it, will the feelings just brim over? What becomes of a kiss that tries to say too much at the same time?

I had waited for this kiss for three years. I had dreamed about his tongue, his teeth, his lips. I had imagined they would be soft, or chapped, or wet with our mixed spit. I had wished for his hands in my hair, pulling me closer and closer, keeping me in place, guiding me through it. ‘I had wanted all this,’ I thought as he kissed me, tentatively at first, as if to see whether he still remembered how to do it, then harshly, so much so that I feared he would draw blood. I didn’t know what he was trying to prove with this kiss. That he loved me? That he wanted me? That he could forget in the blink of an eye that he had a wife and a family with expectations? Our kisses had never been like this. No, our kisses were always easy to understand. Here’s a little peck, because you are silly but I like you. Here’s some teasing with the tip of my tongue, just to show you I can restrain myself. Here’s a sloppy kiss; I’m distracted but I can’t resist you. Here’s a passionate one, ‘cause I can’t wait to have your body against mine. Here’s one imbued in desperation, in a hotel room we’ll never see again, in the dirty toilets at the train station, sealing the fate we knew all along would befall us. 

This one, I couldn’t understand. It was perhaps all of the above smashed together. Maybe it was something else altogether. I went along with it, still. God, had I missed kissing him, his taste in my mouth, his smell all around me. I took as much as I could, tried to carve every second of it into my memory. I kissed him back, pulled his hair, held his face between my hands to steady him. I gave it all, I made it memorable. 

But when I pulled back, panting as if I had run for miles, I had made my resolve. I had let him kiss me, I had taken it because I had wanted it, needed it, but no more. No more because it would mean giving in to so many contradictions, and so many compromises, and I decided, after all, that I was not ready to do that. Not until I knew what he wanted -- what I wanted. 

So I looked at him straight in the face and took the tiniest revenge. “Better now?”

He looked as if I had smacked him and I felt a pang of guilt but I forced it to the back of my head, to the bottom of my stomach, as I patted him on the shoulder once, got off the rock and went back to the villa. 

Although I could feel his eyes on me all the way there, he did not follow me.

*

I was almost back to the relative safety of my room when I ran into Sarah. 

“Oh, Elio.” If she was surprised to see me, she didn’t show it. “I thought you were asleep. Have you seen my husband? I woke up and he was gone.”

Don’t let her suspect, don’t give her a hint. Although -- what if she did get a whiff of what had just happened? What if I gave her just a little nudge in the right direction? 

A barely-there smirk, conceived just to instil some doubt about the sincerity of my words, perhaps an awkward gesture. I could thread a hand through my hair. I could touch my lips as if I didn’t know I was doing it. I could look away, a bit flustered. And then the lie, which would be understood as such, doubted, dissected. What did he mean by that? What am I missing? She would start bugging Oliver, then. I was sure she would. And then… and then. She would find out, eventually, and he would still not want me back. How could he, when it would be because of me that he lost his wife? His safe, perfect life?

He said he loved me and I wanted to believe him. I yearned to believe it. To an extent, I did believe it. I had no doubt that what we felt for each other was real, was the truest, most sincere thing we had ever felt for another person. But I also wanted to be free to be happy about it. I wanted to know that his love for me meant he would find me, choose me. I wanted to stop longing for something that was so honest and yet so forbidden. 

Love, I realised there and then, standing in the middle of a dark hallway, staring at Oliver’s wife, was not enough. I wanted commitment. I wanted sincerity, the possibility to claim him as mine, to shout it at the world that we were together. No, love was not enough. Because he had loved me three years ago and that hadn’t stopped him from getting married to someone else.

So it had to be him. It had to be his choice, he had to be the one to tell his wife, he had to be the one chasing me, begging me to be his, to take him back. Only then I could believe that, when he said he loved me, he meant it not as a regret, but as a promise. 

“He might be down by the water,” I ended up saying, in the flattest tone I could muster up. “That’s where he used to go to think.”

She said thank you, I went back to my room. 

After a few seconds, I heard the door of their room close again.

She was not going out looking for him.

*

The following morning, I called Marzia. I had spent the rest of the night staring at the wall, second-guessing my decision, trying to keep my heart at bay, trying not to feel guilty about having discarded Oliver with such apparent indifference.

"He deserved it," she said over a cup of coffee the moment I finished telling her what had happened. She had heard my voice over the phone and stated matter-of-factly that she would be at the villa in twenty minutes and to get the coffee ready.

We were in the attic, sitting cross-legged on the old mattress. 

"I don't know, Marzia. If he did then why am I feeling like shit?"

She scoffed. "That's because when it comes to Oliver you'll always put him first. His life, his feelings, his needs."

"That's not true."

"That _ is _ true, and the sooner you'll admit it, the sooner you'll be able to do something about it."

"No, really, Marzia. Not this time. I'm not going to give in. I did not give in. I don't -- I thought I was ready to have him any way he would let me, I spent so much time hoping he would come back and tell me what he did yesterday night. But you know what? I felt empty. I thought I would be happy, I thought I would feel relief. But no. He told me he was still in love with me and all I could feel was sorrow."

She looked at me with pity but she didn't say anything. 

"I just -- I don't think I can be his secret, I don't think I can be with him and let him have a parallel life with his wife, see him become a father. It's -- I thought I could do it, I thought I would rather have him like that than not have him at all. But I can't."

"Then tell him."

"Tell him what? That he needs to leave his wife if he wants to be with me?"

"Oui. If you tell him, he has no excuse. He cannot tell you that he didn't know what you wanted. He cannot tell you that he thought you didn't want him anymore. No excuses. If you two don't get back together, it'll because he's a fucking coward that cannot make the right choice for once in his life."

"Marzia!"

"What? It's the truth, you just don't like to hear it."

I looked away. "I still love him."

"Yes. You should tell him that, too."

*

We ended up by the pool later that morning. Oliver was there, working on some documents at the small table under the peach tree. Sarah was sunbathing nearby. She greeted us as we approached and I introduced her to Marzia.

"A friend, eh?" she said, giving me a smirk.

Marzia laughed. "Yes, just a friend. That boat has sailed long ago."

Sarah looked intrigued. "How do you mean?"

She shrugged. "We were together for a while about three years ago but then Elio left me for someone else." 

"Marzia!" I was sure I looked scandalised. I didn't dare look at Oliver. What the hell was she doing?

"What? It's true! No hard feelings, chérie." She settled next to Sarah, threw Oliver a defying glance. I regretted inviting her to stay.

"And you are still friends?" asked Sarah.

"Best friends, really. Elio makes for an awful boyfriend but is a lovely confidant. Don't you think, Oliver?"

I stopped breathing. I experienced first-hand what I had read in so many novels, about time slowing down so much that you could detect every single movement, every tiny change in your surroundings. I looked at Oliver and I saw the surprise in his eyes, and the panic, the struggle to conceal it. I could hear his mind whirring, searching for an answer that would not be incriminating. I could see the effort with which he smiled at her and said: "a great confidant, of course," as if he was just humouring her, before going back to his papers. 

I stared at Marzia, begging her with my eyes not to say anything else. She smiled innocently at me and lay down on her towel.

We were all quiet for a while. I had brought a book with me and I tried to read it, made sure I was turning the pages at a normal pace. I was on edge. I was sure Marzia wasn't done yet.

Still, we stayed in relative peace for a good half hour, a perfect tableau of conviviality and relaxation. Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, minus the food and with less clothing.

Then Marzia turned to me and told me Chiara might be passing by in the afternoon. "She'll be thrilled to see you, Oliver. She had the biggest crush on you when you were here." 

Sarah looked up from her book and Marzia intercepted her stare. She shook her hand in mid-air as if to dismiss any suspicions she might have had. 

"No, but nothing happened between them, I’m sure. Chiara would have told me, she would have bragged about it for ages. And anyway, the last few weeks we barely saw him in town, he spent all his time holed up at the villa.”

I kept quiet, trying to disappear into my deck chair. I knew fully well what Oliver had been doing during those last few weeks.

“Elio says Oliver spent lots and lots of time sitting at the beach, thinking philosopher’s thoughts.”

Marzia snorted. "È così che si dice adesso?[1]" 

Sarah looked at her, confused. 

I threw Marzia the dirtiest half-stare infused with quiet desperation, not looking up completely from my book in a desperate attempt to appear deeply engrossed by its plot. 

“What? What’s so funny about that? What did she say?” Sarah looked at me, then at Oliver, who shook his head and shrugged without looking up from his papers. I knew he had understood perfectly. 

“No, no, _rien_, nothing, sorry. It’s just funny to think of Oliver reflecting at the beach, all focused on who knows what thoughts. Makes him look very dashing in my mind -- not that he isn't dashing all the time, right?”

I studiously didn't answer that. Sarah didn't look very convinced. She stared at Marzia, who was not even trying to hide her smirk, and at me. I hid my face behind the book. I was sweating, and it was not because of the midday sun over our heads.

I waited for the other shoe to drop, for her to put the pieces together. I kept my ear out for a gasp, a soft ‘oh!’, perhaps an ‘it can’t be.’ Instead, I heard Mafalda calling us for lunch. 

I stood up and did my best not to run to the house.

I had been, quite literally, saved by the bell.

[1] “Is that what you call it now?” [Back]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I don't even know how this chapter happened. I just hope it didn't disappoint :)  
As always, I'll do my best to update soon!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here we go...
> 
> Enjoy!

After lunch, I took Marzia to Crema. I insisted I owed her an ice-cream for being a wonderful friend and almost dragged her away from the table by her arm. My parents had looked at me in fond desperation. Sarah had stared at us with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. I could sense she was thinking -- about what, I didn’t want to know. That was a lie. I desperately wanted to know, but I dreaded finding out.

Marzia was snickering by the time we took the first left turn and the house disappeared behind us.

I pedalled for a few meters more, then I stopped and turned to look at her. She had stopped, too, and was trying to contain the giggles she had somehow held in for the duration of our lunch.

“You are a horrible person, Marzia. I hope you know it.”

She burst out laughing at that. 

“What were you even thinking?” 

She shrugged, still giggling. “She seems like a smart enough woman. I was just giving her something to work with.”

“Why the hell would you do that?”

Another shrug, a pointed stare. “Because you weren’t going to.”

“And have you thought why not? She’s gonna freak out, she’s gonna leave him. She could ruin his life, my life, Marzia.”

“She’s not gonna do anything like that. Can you imagine what people would say about her? How could she not have known? Had she taken part, too? Had she enjoyed it? She would ruin her life, as well.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t. But I can imagine. And I think it’s worth the risk if in the end I’m going to see you happy.”

I shook my head, disarmed. Marzia had a way of being infuriating and the best person in the room at the same time. “Just, please, don’t do it again. You almost gave me a heart attack and if I die of embarrassment all your efforts will have been for nothing.”

She rolled her eyes at me but nodded all the same. “I’ll be a good girl from now on, promise.”

I could only hope she meant it.

*

I ended up spending the rest of the day in town. Marzia phoned Chiara from the bar and asked her to join us, and she brought her new boyfriend with her. A few more people saw us and stopped for a chat. It was an uneventful afternoon, passed drinking lemonade in the piazza, catching up on everyone's life, playing cards. We all went to Marzia's for dinner, her parents' home being the closest and her housekeeper the most tolerant towards unexpected guests. I welcomed the normalcy of it, the fact that there were no traps, no quicksands ready to swallow me at the first faux pas. Just a few friends enjoying life, a summer that seemed endless, and good food.

When I got back to the villa, I found my parents watching TV in the living room and Mafalda washing dishes in the kitchen. I gave them all a kiss and my mother commented on my good mood. I shrugged, gave her another kiss and went to my room before she tried to ask why I was so affectionate that night. How could I explain that I was just happy because for half a day I had not given Oliver a thought? How could I explain that such brief relief from the constant dread and longing I felt when I thought of him was enough to celebrate, to be merry, to be giddy?

No, better to hide away in my room, to avoid my father's searching eyes, my mother's nosy questions.

I changed into some loose briefs and grabbed my packet of cigarettes without switching on the light, stepping onto the balcony for one last smoke. 

Sarah was there, too, taking long drags from her cigarette. She nodded at me and I did the same.

We stood there, smoking our cigarettes, not saying anything. The quiet of the evening seemed to request some deep contemplation from us, some sort of still acquiescence that there was nothing we could say to each other that would be more significant than this silence.

"I think I owe you an apology."

She spoke without looking at me, softly, without inflection. I stared at her as she leant against the balustrade, unconsciously mimicking my usual pose. 

"What for?"

She shrugged, inhaled, exhaled a puff of smoke, contemplated it as it dissolved. She was choosing her words carefully. “I have been bugging you for three days about Oliver’s crush. It must have been unpleasant."

Was she testing me? Was she looking for confirmation of something she suspected but could not come to terms with? I leaned against the balustrade, too. “No need to apologise, it’s normal to be curious.”

She snorted, but didn't seem amused.

"You care about him, don't you?"

I couldn't see where this conversation was going. I didn't want to see it.

"Oliver, you mean?" I shrugged. "I suppose so." How well have I learnt to feign indifference? Were the last three years just practice for this moment? Would my half-lie hold? Don't look at me, don't see through me.

“You can stop pretending, Oliver told me.” 

Oliver told her. I took the longest drag from my cigarette, exhaled slowly, bought time any way I could. She couldn't mean that. It couldn't be true. “Oliver told you what?” 

She still wouldn't look at me. “About you.”

“About me?” I needed to hear her say it, I needed to know she was not just bluffing.

“About you two. Together.” 

Silence. I could have denied it, but for what purpose? She knew. I had nothing to say. I just stared straight ahead and gave a small nod. I concede. I admit it. Here's the truth you've been looking for. Please, please don't destroy me. Don't destroy him. 

“In hindsight, it was so obvious, so obvious. You are just his type: smart, funny, all long limbs and messy hair. Only not, well—”

“A woman.” I said it to save her the effort to get it out. 

She tilted her head in agreement. "Yeah, it's just--" 

She didn't finish the sentence, just shook her head, took a few drags. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to feel. She knew. She knew and she was talking to me about it. 

"I really am sorry for being so obnoxious about it. I knew Oliver was hiding something and he wouldn't tell me and I just couldn't let it go." She paused, then, put out her cigarette. She seemed lost in her thoughts for a moment. "I should have let it go."

I found that I was feeling for her. Not pity, no. Rather sorrow, for she was lifting a weight from my shoulders and taking it all on hers. I couldn't help but think she didn't deserve it. I passed her a new cigarette, tried to think of something worth saying, something that would allow us to share some of that burden. "I'm sorry you found out. It was a long time ago, it could have stayed in the past."

She looked at me, then, straight into my face. "I don't know that it could have, Elio."

I felt naked under her stare. "Why do you say that?"

She shrugged, smiled bitterly. "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." 

It felt like a prophecy, it felt like a sentence. I had to deny it. "Nothing happened, if that's what you are implying. He wouldn't do that to you." 

“But you still care about him.” She said she should have let it go. Why wasn't she learning from her mistakes?

“It was a long time ago.” I was a broken record, a parrot condemned to repeat the same meaningless words over and over again.

“I think he still cares about you, too.”

“He married you.” It came out flat, empty, deadpan. When you cram every emotion you have ever felt into a sentence, they cannot but cancel each other out.

“He did. He married his best friend. Perhaps not his best idea, after all.”

I must have looked surprised because she nodded, gave me a tiny smile. "We've known each other since we were kids. Our families are close. Twenty years and I have never suspected, not once..." She turned to me sharply, then. It seemed to me that she had just made up her mind about something, something she had been mulling over for a while. Something that she might have thought better to omit but was nagging at her too much to keep it in. "You know how I know you still care about him?" 

I shook my head -- whether to say that I didn't know or that I didn't care about him, I couldn't tell. 

"'Cause you're still protecting him. You're still lying for him."

I wanted to deny it but she didn't let me, she spoke before I could.

"You said nothing happened. He told me he kissed you yesterday. I tend to believe him." Sarcasm. Of all things, she was using sarcasm on me. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I rubbed my eyes, searching for an adequate answer. How do you tell the wife of the man you love that yes, you did kiss him, but you're not going to take him back unless he leaves her? How do you explain that if he chooses her, you'll let him go, for good this time?

"Is a kiss worth a marriage?" I ended up asking her, and she seemed to understand what I was trying to say. 

"No, perhaps not. I could let a kiss go, I could forgive him easily. Hell, I have already forgiven him for that. But the intent behind that kiss -- that might be worth a marriage."

I shook my head. I didn't want to hear what she was saying. I didn't want hope. Not from her.

"Look, Elio, I don't blame you, alright? I really don't. And I don't know if I can blame Oliver, either. Sometimes life just happens, and it's not what you were expecting. I just wish he'd told me sooner, it would have saved everyone a lot of embarrassment."

"He's not going to leave you, Sarah. He's made his choice a long time ago. He's gonna stand by that."

"Yeah, and by doing so he'll condemn us both to a miserable life." Her voice was calm but I could see she was distraught. I know how it feels, I wanted to tell her. I know how it feels to think of him and realise he's not yours anymore, that perhaps he's never been yours. I know how it feels to second-guess everything you did together, every kiss, every laugh, every word he's ever said. I know and there is nothing I can say to make it go away. It's been three years and I still have to learn how to live with that.

"You don't know that. Oliver has told you about his past. Don't let it ruin the present. If you were happy together before, you can still be happy together now. Nothing has changed." It cost me everything to say it. I couldn't begin to understand why I was trying to convince her that her marriage was not a ruse. It just felt like the right thing to do, the least cruel thing to do. Perhaps Marzia was right, I was still putting him first. If he could not be happy with me, at least I could try my best to make sure he was happy with her.

She gave me a small smile, one that seemed to say 'thank you for trying, you really didn't have to.' 

"Nothing has changed, you say. We've lived a normal life, Elio, nothing more, nothing less. I suppose we were happy in our own way. I love him, he loves me. It's the same love we have felt for each other since kindergarten. The same old, boring love you feel for you parents, out of habit, out of familiarity. It didn't feel old nor boring this afternoon, as he talked about you. It felt painful, and overwhelming, and so, so honest. You say nothing has changed, Elio, but you are wrong. Now I know what he looks like when he's in love, truly in love, and I also know he'll never be like that with me."

She was gripping the railing so hard that her knuckles had turned white. For lack of a better answer, I reached out and touched her hand. She slowly let go of the railing and turned to look at me. Her eyes were fierce when she spoke.

"Don't let him run away this time, Elio. Don't let him hide behind someone else again. You don't deserve it, and he doesn't either."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta love Sarah, eh? <3   
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes" comes from Margaret Atwood's _The Testaments_, which is a chilling masterpiece of a novel. Go read it if you haven't yet!  
More is coming soon, stay tuned!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo...  
First of all, sorry it took me so long to update. The end of the semester is killing me and I 'finally' experienced writer's block while writing in this fandom. Man, does it suck.  
There's really only one way out of writer's block for me, and that is through *art*! So, let's see how many literary/artistic references you can find in this chapter ;) There's an unusually large amount, some are much more explicit than others.
> 
> Seriously, though. This chapter almost killed me. I wrote it, then rewrote it, then rewrote it some more, then changed it radically, and now all there is left is this patched up Frankenstein-monster-like chapter I have to learn to love otherwise it'll go on a murderous spree. 
> 
> I do hope you enjoy it!

I couldn't promise her not to let him go. I couldn't promise her I would convince him that choosing me was the right thing to do, I couldn't promise I would demand his commitment.

"Where is he?" I asked her, instead. 

She shook her head. "He's gone for a walk after dinner."

We finished our cigarettes in silence, went back to our rooms. There was nothing else to add.

I lay in my bed for a long time, listening as she moved around the bathroom, the bedroom. 

Would he go back to her tonight? Should I go looking for him? He could be down by the water, or maybe at the table in the orchard, perhaps by the pool. Not too far -- not anymore. I would find him.

But I realised I shouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't for all the reasons that I had carved into my brain by repeating them over and over again, every time I had slipped and thought of him, and missed him, and longed for him. I wouldn't because he was so close I could reach out and touch him but if I did he would turn to gold. Trust him, he's right behind you. Just walk towards the light, don't turn around. He's following, don't look. He'll follow you back from the underworld, he'll follow you back to reality, and then, under the sun, he'll reach out and hold your hand. And when you turn to him, he won't be a ghost anymore. But you have to trust him, and you have to let him find you, follow your footprints, follow the sound of your steps, follow the memory of what used to be and the promise of what is to come.

I did not go looking for him that night. Exhaustion got the better of me, after three days spent tormenting myself, and I fell asleep before I could hear his steps on the stairs, the soft click of a door being closed with care.

It was all for the best.

*

He was not there at breakfast. It didn't surprise me. 

"Oliver's gone to Crema," Sarah told me, conversationally. She looked well-rested and at ease as she spread some jam on her toast with clinical precision. I envied her the facade, if not the sincere state of mind. I could not believe she was truly feeling cheery and relaxed. "He said he wanted to talk to Signora Milani about a new book he's writing."

"Will he be back for lunch?" my mother asked her.

"I don't know, he didn't say."

My father rolled his eyes, smiling. "These professors, they get lost in their books and papers and forget everything else. I should know." He winked at Sarah and she answered with a light chuckle. I felt sick to my stomach. Was he really in town? Was he avoiding her? Was he avoiding me?

It was a windy day, one of the few we got that summer. The sun was still shining bright, unrelenting, but in the distance I could see dark clouds gathering. 

"Let's hope he gets back before it starts to rain," I commented, trying to swallow the dread and the treacherous hope that wouldn't stop poking at me.

We all stared at the sky for a few moments. I had planned on going to the berm, hiding away for a few hours, thinking things through. I resented the weather for its insensitive intromission, for soon forcing all of us inside the house when the only thing everyone wanted was to be free to be on their own.

And what an assorted party we were, sitting around the table, talking nicely to each other about anything but the things that mattered. 

My parents, always cordial, always smiling, always loving even when they were together for lack of a better alternative. I had known for a while, I had come to accept it. I had envisioned my own future without Oliver as I watched them act out their routine, retrace the same steps, replay the same roles, resigned to being alone together, quietly mismatched by lost occasions and lives never lived. Sarah, with her calm understanding, her bright smiles, her piercing eyes which saw through me and left me feeling vulnerable. Oliver, wherever he actually was, so full of contradictions I could not even begin to list them. And myself, of course, who was like him in so many ways, and yet so different, so different. 

We were all playing our parts, following an unfinished script without a director to guide us through it. Characters looking for an author. 

This thought resonated with me. After breakfast, I went to my father's study to look for a long-forgotten score. Schubert's Symphony no. 8 used to be a favourite of mine. In fact, it had taken up most of my days the summer Maynard had been here. 

As I sat at the piano and let my fingers refamiliarise themselves with movements once natural, I thought of those years, the ones before Oliver, before those few scorching, unforgettable days when I experienced love just to lose it on a Milan-bound train. How free I had been, how focused on myself, how naive. I still was, to an extent. But after meeting Oliver I was not just Elio anymore. I used to think he was more myself than I. What that meant about me, I still wasn't quite so sure. Perhaps that without him, there would always be a part of me missing, the part of me that called him by my name, and that he called by his. That part of me that he had taken away with him, that I had given freely. Perhaps it meant that I would never be whole again. But perhaps it also meant that I would always be with him, he would always have something of mine to protect, to treasure, to hold within his most intimate thought.

So I played Schubert's no. 8, "Unfinished," as the others stayed outside and enjoyed the last rays of sun before the storm. And then I played Bach, his Art of Fugue, and revelled in that one final note that lingered in the empty room, waiting, calling out for more, for the melody to be completed, for some relief that would never come.

Broken symphonies, left unfinished by their composers. Scattered pieces of my life, before him, with him, after him. Both waiting for someone to add a final touch, to string along a couple of notes more, a few embellishments, to mend the tear. Both waiting to be whole. Both leaning toward that very absence that defined them.

*

I was reading in my room, half-lying half-sitting on my bed, when the storm hit later that morning. It started with a tell-tale gush of chilly wind, the tap of a raindrop hitting the dusty ground, then a second, a third, a thousand all together. I let the noise lull me as I got lost in the imagined taste of madeleines and involuntary memories of times long gone. I left my window open, breathing in the smell of wet earth, revelling in the cold gusts reaching me across the room. It felt, for a second, like the whole world had let out a sigh held in for too long and was experiencing that in-between moment when you are not inhaling, not exhaling; you're just waiting, suspended in time and space, for the regular flow of air to resume and go back to its fundamental anonymity. 

Then someone knocked on my door. I didn't bother moving from the bed, just said to come in. I was expecting Mafalda with her hands full of laundry. I got Oliver, instead, with his hands full of nothing but a neatly wrapped package that was unmistakably a book.

He lingered on the threshold of my room as I sat up and stared at him. 

"Can I come in?"

I nodded. I was reminded of another time when he had knocked on my door and almost caught me with my hand inside my pants. He had not asked for permission to enter back then, he had just walked in, barely giving me the time to pretend I wasn't about to come thinking of him. I had found that attitude infuriating. I had loved every second of it. Now he didn't seem hesitant either, he still had the same air of confidence about him that I had once mistaken for arrogance. But I understood then what had escaped me in the past: he did not feel he had the right to walk into my room without asking for permission anymore. 

He closed the door behind him, moved towards the bed, handed me the package. 

I took it with a confused look.

"I saw it today and it made me think of you."

I unwrapped the book. It was a hardbound copy of Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann.

I stared at it, then at him in disbelief. He was still standing by the bed and I had to look up.

"Is this how you think of us?"

He hesitated and I pressed him, trying and failing to keep my emotions out of my voice. "Oliver, is this how you think of us?" I was holding the book with the hardest grip. It was one of my favourite novels. I loathed that he would pick it out for me, hand it to me, say that it made him think of me. Not like that, not a story like that. I was not Tadzio, he was not von Aschenbach. We had nothing to do with them. Nothing. 

"No, most of the time it isn't," he answered after an endless heartbeat.

"And some of the time it is?" 

He looked away, walked up to the window, didn't give me a straight answer. "I gather you've already read the book."

I suddenly realised I was furious. "What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked him, barely keeping my voice from shaking. "Why would you think this has anything to do with us? I'm no child, and you're not a fifty-year-old man lusting after me, following me around like a creep."

He snorted, kept staring at the rain. "I've kept tabs on you, though. I know where you live in New York, where you go to school. I know who you are working with. I even know where you like to get coffee in the city."

"So what? I have, too. I know all of that about you, too. Do you think that makes you a bad person? Do you think I'd resent you for that? Christ, Oliver, I would understand that, I do understand that. This," I said shaking the book. "This I resent. Knowing that you think about us as something so fundamentally wrong it cannot ever leave the realm of the imagination because then it would be criminal, it would be abhorrent."

"There is beauty in that book, too."

"Oh, sure, because that's what you take away from it. That he fell for a child because he was beautiful like a Greek god. That's certainly something I have always wanted to hear from you."

"Then what do you want to hear from me?"

"You could start by explaining why you told your wife about us without even considering warning me, for instance."

His head snapped toward me. "How do you know I told her?"

"I know because she's fucking apologised to me for asking me about your summer crush, of all things. Do you have any idea how that felt like? What do you think you are doing?"

He rubbed a hand on his face, sighed."Of course she did, I should have imagined," he muttered to himself. "Look, Elio, I wanted to tell you, I really did. That's why I came here today. I didn't think she'd go looking for you yesterday night."

"But why tell her at all? Why risk everything for something that's so inevitably in the past?"

He looked at me in the face, then. "Is this how you see it? As inevitably in the past?"

I held his stare, challenged him to avert his eyes. "Are you going to leave her?" Please, say yes, please, please say you will. Don't make me beg, come to me freely. But he had no answer for me, and I understood his silence for what it was: a no. "Then yes, this is how I see it."

He held my gaze a few moments longer, then nodded. I could not understand what he was feeling. He looked calm, but I knew he was a better liar than me.

"I told Sarah because she deserved to know, because she would have found out sooner or later. And because I missed you more than usual yesterday afternoon." He sat down on the chair at my desk, looking at me with a small smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I miss you all the time, really, but I've learnt to deal with it in New York. I have people I can reach out to, I can focus on my job, I can hide in my study for a couple of hours. It's manageable. But being here, having you around all the time and still not being able to stop missing you... You know, I tried to ignore the fact that I kissed you. I thought perhaps I would manage to forget it. But Marzia practically told Sarah about us and I -- I just needed to talk about it to somebody. Yesterday afternoon I needed my best friend, not my wife. She has understood that, I think."

We were silent for a while. I didn't know what to say next. That I missed him, too? Of course I did, the same way you'd miss a necklace you've worn your entire life and misplaced on a trip in a foreign country. I missed him with the constant half-awareness of having lost something precious, something irreplaceable, and with the perception of the emptiness filling his space in my life. I was still sitting on the bed, holding the book he'd given me. For lack of a better option, I spoke about that.

"This is one of my favourite novels of all time."

He looked at me in surprise. "It sure didn't seem like it a few minutes ago."

I nodded, conceding his point. "I mean it, it is a masterpiece. Mann portrays love for beauty with such honesty, such candour. But that's not all there is to it. There's this quote that goes: “man loves and honors man as long as he is not able to judge him, and desire is a product of lacking knowledge.” For the longest time, I thought this was a universal truth. That love would disappear once the lovers became more aware of each other. And it summarises the core message of the novel perfectly. The story is about the purest love in the darkest, least accepted form it can take. And it is about intellectual love, about the non-existent boundaries of our imagination. That is not how I--" I faltered then, looked at him, unsure whether to continue. Better to speak or to die? I met his eyes and I forced it out. "That is not how I love you. It is not in the potential, not in the imagination, not in the ignorance that I find my reasons. It is exactly in the opposite: it is in the knowledge. I know you, and that is why I love you." 

"How can you say it so easily?" He was leaning towards me, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands cupping his nape as he stared at the floor.

"Because it's true."

He looked up and there it was, in his eyes: quiet desperation. "I don't think I deserve your love."

"I don't think that matters. I cannot stop. Believe me, I've tried." 

"I've never wanted any of this." 

There. He said it. I love you, you love me, that's all very nice but I'll have to decline your kind offer of a life together. I had suspected all along this would be the inevitable ending. It still hurt to look at him and accept that he had made his choice a second time, and once more it wasn't me. Hope, treacherous hope. The last to die -- so what's left after it, too, has left for good? Misery, resignation. Sorrow. I would have a lifetime to mourn him. 

"Then go back to your wife, talk to her, make things right, and have a good life with her. You can still have all that. Just forget me."

I tried, truly tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice as I forced out the words that would seal our fate. Marzia had warned me not to put him first, she had told me to be sincere, to be selfish. My father had told me the same, in his own way. I knew they were right. But as he looked at me from across the room, a bare couple of meters that felt like several lightyears keeping us apart, I thought that if the only way out was for just one of us to be happy, then I was ready to sacrifice myself.

"No, you don't understand. I could never forget you, Elio. Not even if I forced your memories in the back of my head, sealed them with miles and miles of barbed wire. I can't, and I won't, because it would be like forgetting a piece of myself. I meant that I've never wanted to hurt you, or Sarah. I've never wanted to leave you in the first place. I've never wanted to lie to your parents or pretend I didn't care about you. Because I care, I do care about you, probably too much for my own good. I just don't know what to do."

"Choose me." I had said it looking at him straight in the face. Two words I had promised myself not to utter, a prayer I had sworn not to send out to the gods. I had resolved not to push him, I had wanted him to find me on his own, but right there and then, on the edge of a precipice, unsure whether to leap or to fall, I picked the former and pulled him with me. 

And slowly, staring at me with desperate eyes, he nodded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More is coming soon, I promise. I more or less got over my writer's block. I think.  
Have faith!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to update... but now the semester has ended!!! Yaaaaayyyy!!!!
> 
> Enjoy!

I watched his head bob up and down, tracked that tiny movement with my eyes, and it took me a few seconds to realise what it meant, to glimpse the enormity implied in such a small gesture.

For a moment, the noise of the rain was louder than my thoughts, louder than the creakings of the old villa, louder than the chatter of people getting lunch ready downstairs. Not louder than my heartbeat, though. It rang in my ears, it thundered in my chest. It drowned out every other sound, demanded my attention, made me focus with razor-sharp attention on him. 

"What are you saying yes to?" I had to ask him. I had to hear it from him. I could not misunderstand, not in this moment when I felt my whole life was suspended from a spider web, almost invisible, ever so frail. 

I had moved towards him and I was sitting on the edge of my bed, our knees just a few inches apart. He felt huge in my bedroom, in my house, in my life. He seemed to take over all the space there was, he seemed to be the only thing I could see, and hear, and feel.

I desperately wanted to reach out and touch him, let our bodies do the talking for us. We had never been very good with words, not with each other. Perhaps because what we felt was pure Platonic idea, impossible to cage into the fixed structures of language. Perhaps we thought there was no need to say it out loud, to make it explicit. Perhaps we had known all along that those words had to be uttered and we had shied away from them, too afraid of the consequences.

Not this time, not when everything seemed inconsequential but the answer I was waiting for, from him, from his lips, his mind, his heart. 

He said, "You. I'm saying yes to you." And he must have seen that it was not enough, that I was about to ask for more, for a better answer, because he moved closer, placed both his hands on my knees, brought his face close to mine and added, "Elio, I'm saying yes to myself." 

And we needed to say many more words, we needed to talk things through, we needed to consider the consequences of a reckless choice that felt so, so right, but there and then, I just grabbed him by his face and pulled him into a kiss.

We kissed, and kissed, and kissed as if we had forgotten how to stop, as if it was the only thing keeping us alive. He had to lift himself up from the chair, lean toward me, put all his weight on his arms, on my knees, until he pushed me back against the mattress, covered my body with his, and stopped worrying about staying on his feet and only focused on our lips touching, and our tongues chasing each other, and our teeth clashing. 

I stopped thinking altogether, just let my instincts take over as I dug my fingers into his shoulders, his hips, and pulled him impossibly closer. I revelled in the feeling of his weight on top of me, of his long legs tangled in mine, of his hands in my hair as he pulled my head back and kissed my neck. I was shocked by the sensation of his skin under my hands where I had crumpled his t-shirt up, at once so familiar and so novel. I touched, pushed, pulled. It felt wild, overwhelming, almost unbearable.

It wasn't until he pulled back enough to cup my face in both his hands and caressed my cheeks with his thumbs that I realised I was crying. He had just wiped away my tears and was looking at me, hesitant.

"Are you alright?"

I gulped in some air, covered my eyes with my hand. I was, I was. It was just too much.

I felt him sitting back on his heels, giving me space. His hand was on my chest, spread open. He was rubbing soothing circles with his thumb. I could feel the heat of his skin through my t-shirt. 

I reached for his arm, grabbed him by the wrist, just held on to him as I calmed down, as the last few tears spilled over.

It was not sorrow I was letting out through them. It was relief, so much relief. That, and regret for all the years spent apart and for the lives we might have lived if we hadn't met again. But mostly happiness, and a sense of rightfulness, of having finally found myself again, of having seen through all the hurt and pretend, and of having been seen, and accepted, at last. 

"Elio?" 

He whispered my name and I took a deep, shaky breath, and looked at him in the eyes, and smiled through the tears. "I'm fine, sorry."

He smiled back, still looking uncertain. I tightened my hold on his wrist, pulled him back against me, hugged him.

"I'm fine," I repeated, whispering into his hair. "I had just forgotten how it actually felt to touch you like this." 

He pressed his face against my neck, placed a gentle kiss there, just held me. I realised he was shaking a bit, too.

We listened to the rain fall for a while. 

"Will you ever forgive me for leaving you, for getting married?" He muttered it against my skin, his face hidden in the crook of my neck.

I did not have an answer ready for him. I pushed at him until we were on our sides, facing each other. I had stared at him so many times before but now it felt different, it felt new. I took in every detail of his face as our breaths intertwined, as we inhaled each other's air. He wouldn't look at me. 

I could not look away. I wanted to say there was nothing to forgive, I wanted to say I had already forgiven everything. Instead I said, "I will learn how to, if you let me," which was the most honest thing I could tell him, and the only promise I could make.

He opened his eyes, then, and stared at me with the most vulnerable expression I had ever seen on his face. "I don't deserve you."

He had already said that earlier. I shook my head, touched his cheek. "You need to stop saying that. This has nothing to do with deserving things. Love is not given because one deserves it. It is not a prize. I have loved you when you deserved it and when you didn't. And I have never regretted a moment of it. Do you understand me? Not a moment."

He sighed, placed his hand on top of mine. "You have always been much wiser than your age, Elio."

"Oliver--" I wondered how much was hidden behind his remark, what he was trying to imply, what he was trying to conceal. "Are you really sure you want to do this?" I found myself asking despite my best efforts to push that question to the back of my mind.

He stared at me for a long moment, unblinking, holding my gaze. What was he seeing in my eyes as he found his answer? Was it really me he was seeing as he stared into my face? Or was he looking into himself through my eyes?

"I think this is the last time I'll get to make this choice. You won't ask again, and I won't come looking for you. And if there's one thing I am sure about, it is that I don't want to live a life without you in it. So yes. It is going to be a mess, and I don't know that I'll come through it all unscathed, or if I'll be able to shelter you, but yes. I want to do this. There's nothing I want to do more, and for once I'm going to act upon my feelings."

I bit my lip, then, refrained from saying the first thing that came to my mind: that I didn't deserve so much. Look at that. Perhaps love had something to do with deserving it, after all. Perhaps it was precisely because I felt I was undeserving of his love that, humbled, I could accept it. Perhaps it was for this very reason that I felt I should treasure him. I recalled something I had told my father long ago, with a faltering voice and barely restrained tears, when I thought he was gone for good and all I could do was mourn his absence. That he was good. And I was, too, my father had said. And we were good together, and for each other, and perhaps we didn't deserve this overwhelming, insuperable love, but we had it, and we were giving it freely, and receiving it freely. And perhaps that's what love is: being able to see past what we deserve and what we don't and just accept what is given, without restraints, without guilt.

And as the rain kept falling and the clap of thunder drowned out every other sound, I held him and promised him we would make it through it all together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, more is coming soon. Hold on tight :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, folks! Hope you are all having happy, relaxing, and fulfilling holidays. I took some time to decide where this story was going and now I have a rather clear idea :) Back on track, posting chapters more or less regularly!
> 
> Enjoy!

We lay on my bed for what seemed like forever, exchanging soft kisses, revered touches. For a while, it seemed like the world was reduced to our two bodies on a bed, the space between us, and the sensation of our hands roaming on fabric and skin, of our lips touching. 

Let this last forever, I thought, let this bliss never end. But we were startled by a knock on my door and we sprang away from each other, scrambled to our feet, put some distance between us in the space of a heartbeat. For a second, we looked at each other, disarmed, the bed suddenly an insurmountable obstacle separating us. It felt wrong to still be doing that, to still be hiding away what we were to each other, which was sincere, and pure, and perfect, and should not have been cause for shame or guilt. But shame and guilt we seemed to feel, as we heard Sarah's voice call me through the door. And we had to look away, because the truth was that he was still cheating on his wife, and I was still leading him on, and we were still a secret, after all. We were still in the wrong, one way or another. 

Sarah was holding a folded t-shirt when I opened the door and forced my eyes to meet hers.

“Is this yours? Mafalda left it with my laundry.”

I nodded, thanked her as I took it. We hesitated, then, me standing on the threshold of my room, holding the door, her in the bathroom. There was so much we could have told each other, so much left unspoken since our chat the night before. I wanted to apologise, I wanted to thank her, I wanted to ask why she had told me not to let Oliver go once more, why she was giving up on him so easily. I wanted to know if she was angry. To an extent, I hoped she was. I could handle anger, or so I thought, but kindness, resignation... I could do both, but they always unsettled me when I was on the receiving end. 

So there was so much to say, yes, but all that would have to wait, because Oliver was in my room, and had been in my arms until moments before, and he was still in my mind, and heart, and I just wanted to hide away with him again, let the world and all its problems wait some more, wait until we talked things through, wait until it was ready to accept us, and we were ready to show everyone what we meant for each other. 

But life rarely waits, and neither does the world. Sarah bit her lower lip, tormented it as she made up her mind. I could see the question coming as she took a deep breath, opened her mouth to speak. 

"Have you seen Oliver?"

I had. I had in so many ways. I had seen him: I knew where he was. I had seen him: I had talked to him. I had seen him: I had finally heard what he was struggling to say under all those layers of doubt and hesitation and guilt. I wondered which one would answer her question, whether I should lie, deny everything, stand in the doorway a bit taller, a bit wider so that she wouldn't catch a glimpse of him in my bedroom. Should I tell her the truth? Did I even have the right to do that? 

In the end, Oliver spared me the effort of making a choice. He calmly said "I'm here" from right behind me, and reality shattered the bubble we had just created for ourselves.

I saw her eyebrows shoot up in surprise, her eyes widen as she took us in, standing close in the doorway. She noticed our tousled hair, the puffiness of our lips. Most certainly, my guilty expression. Perhaps his, too.

Her mouth formed a perfect little circle as it opened in surprise. There we were, standing on the threshold of my room, on the threshold of our lives. Pillars of salt, a tableau vivant, Medusa's victims.

"Wow," she breathed out. She shook her head quickly, got her expression in check. "Seems like I interrupted something."

"We were talking--" said Oliver, and I saw her eyes narrow. 

"Don't lie to my face, Ollie." 

"We were," he insisted. "We were talking, and then we -- stopped." I felt my cheeks burn. 

She let out an exasperated sigh, nodded towards my room in a clear indication that we should all step into it. 

I sat on the bed, still holding on to my t-shirt, trying to smooth the crumpled sheets with one hand without her noticing. Oliver went back to my desk chair only to realise that there was nowhere else to sit for Sarah. He stood up to give her the chair but she raised a hand and stopped him. 

Never in my life had I felt more awkward than in that moment, with them in my room, Sarah with her back against the closed door, Oliver sitting at my desk, and me, right in the middle of the room. Right between them. 

"Am I right in thinking that you have followed my advice?" she asked him. I didn't know what she was referring to, but I could guess. He nodded.

"Then you have decided." Oliver hesitated, looked at me, stared at me for the longest moment. I stared back, not hiding the hope, the desperation. I knew what he had just promised me. I wanted to believe he was sure about it. I wanted to believe he would really pick me this time. So soon, he had to prove he had meant it. 

He didn't look away when he said yes. 

It still stunned me, to hear him say it out loud, firm, convinced, definitive. To hear him say it to his wife. Sarah seemed remarkably calm. Once more I wished I knew what they had talked about the day before, how much Oliver had confessed, how understanding she had been, how forgiving. She had told me not to let him go this time, she had essentially given me permission. Had she done the same with him? How much could it have cost her?

Sarah nodded at him. "Good. Stand true to that. Stand true to him."

She looked at me, then, with a small smile. I wondered how she could find it in herself to smile at me. Would I ever stop feeling guilty about all this? 

"You two have something precious. And you were lucky enough to get a second chance. Don't waste it on self-doubt and second-guessing."

At that moment, she probably understood us better than we did ourselves. She had seen the hesitation in me the previous night; she must have witnessed Oliver's, too. She could guess every obstacle we foresaw in our future, every bit of pain and hope we felt. The reluctance with which we had orbited around each other, unavoidably on a collision course and yet still unyielding, still trying to escape the attraction. She had seen it all, and understood it, and somehow accepted it, and there and then I thought Oliver might be a good person, and I might be, too, but she was the best of us, and I couldn't help but love her for what she had done for us.

"Thank you," I told her, because if I had said anything more I would have blurted out the most embarrassing things. I would never be able to repay my debt towards her. There was nothing I could give her that could match what she was offering me now, letting Oliver go, supporting his decision so gracefully. 

She nodded. "Be kind to him, Elio, and to yourself." Then she looked at Oliver. "We'll have to sort things out back in the States but there's time for that. For now, just enjoy the peace before the storm."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, you guys have no idea of how many times I have rewritten pieces of this chapter. This update is the result of exasperation and impatience -- mine, of course. I can't wait to write the rest of this story but I _had_ to write this bit before I could go on and it just. wouldn't. come. out. right.  
Also, admittedly, I've never had so many people following one of my fics before and it is getting a bit scary. I don't want to disappoint but aaaarg!  
Nevermind, I'll just keep on writing my story, just as I would like to read it, but do let me know what you think in the comments, please, they always steer me in the best direction!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the sun... 🎵🎵 🎵 
> 
> Enjoy!

We were called for lunch shortly after Sarah left my room. We sat around the dining room table for once, the rain having only just stopped. By the time we finished eating the sun would be back in the sky, catching up on the couple of hours lost behind dark clouds and heavy rain. 

I had to fight my body to keep still, look normal as Mafalda served our food. I had started catching up with reality and I was buzzing with it.

Oliver wanted me. Oliver chose me. 

I wanted to shout it from the top of the belfry in San Giacomo, I wanted to sing it, I wanted to write it into my scores, perform it in front of everyone, naked in all ways but the physical. Let them see, I’m his and he’s mine. I’m him and he’s me. He’s my music, and mind, and soul.

He was sitting next to me, talking to my father about Baudrillard’s latest work,  _ America _ . They were having an impassioned discussion about it, of which I wasn’t registering a single word. I was looking at him, scrutinizing every inch of his body, taking in the tiny movements, the sweeping gestures. Italy was brushing off on him, I thought, and it amused me to watch his hands fend the air as he defended his opinion.

I couldn’t wait to have them all over my naked body, somewhere we would not be interrupted, somewhere we could be ourselves without restraints. I ached for his touch, for the feeling of his skin against mine. I wanted him with an urgency I couldn’t quite suppress.

I squirmed in my chair, touched his foot with mine, and he faltered for an instant, got his line of thought back, continued talking without looking at me. Under the table, he interlaced the fingers of his foot with mine, wiggled them, flexed them in an awkward massage that promised to become much more once we were alone.

I followed him after we finished eating, left the table a few seconds after him in an attempt not to give myself away too obviously. I caught up with him on the stairs, grabbed him by the wrist, pulled him back towards the ground floor. 

“Let’s go for a ride.”

“Now?” He hesitated, not moving. I pulled at him again.

“Yes, now.”

I didn’t let his arm go as I walked to the shed, got my bike, and Anchise’s for him. He didn’t ask where we were going, didn’t say we had to tell my parents, or Sarah, that we were leaving. He just looked at me with a small frown, the one he put on when he was trying to guess my thoughts, to anticipate my next move. The one that said, I wish I was in your head so that I could know what you are plotting, so that I could be ready for you.

I loved that little frown; it showed me I could still surprise him.

The streets were still wet from the storm but the sky was clear and the sun had gone back to shining bright and unimpeded. In a matter of hours, if not minutes, it would be as warm as it was before the storm — warmer, perhaps, as the water evaporated off the roads and fields and turned into humidity.

I pedalled along the empty roads and he followed, sometimes coming up to my side, surpassing me for a bit. He had laughed when he had done it the first time, shouted I was  _ troppo lento _ , too slow, and I had pushed on the pedals, raced him to the nearest curve, shouted back  _ parla per te,  _ talk for yourself, as I got back to my leading position. We had laughed together, a full, giddy laugh, and it had been the first time since he had come back. 

Once we turned onto the barely-there dirt road, I heard Oliver inhale sharply. It told me he knew where we were going. I had wondered if he had recognised the path. The only other time we had been there together we had travelled the opposite route, cycling from town toward the villa, and not vice versa.

We left the bikes at the end of the dirt road, where the grass overtook it completely and the fields spread wide in front of us, surrounded by trees on one side, water on the other.

This is my spot. It’s all mine, I had told him proudly that day in which I had decided that speaking was better than dying. It had become our spot in my mind, after we had splashed around in the water, lain on the grass, kissed under the scorching sun because by then it had become unavoidable. 

This is where I come to be with you, I wanted to tell him. This is the place where I find you when you are not here. But I didn’t want to spoil the mood, I didn’t want to talk about the hours I had spent sitting on this grass by myself, a book forgotten at my side, as I longed, and ached, and hoped for a cure that I had come to accept didn’t exist. 

“Monet’s berm,” he said, coming up beside me. I was standing close to the water, looking into the distance. We were alone, as alone as anyone could be. Not a soul for miles, no orchards to be harvested, no farms with cattle to care for, no houses with old women eating biscuits sitting just outside their front doors. Just fields of grass, and freezing water from the Alpi Orobie, and cicadas, and blackbirds, and two men who had finally found their way back to the start.

“I have missed this place.” He spoke softly, as if he didn’t want to disturb the silence. “It’s funny, I’ve only been here once with you, and yet when I think of Italy, of us, this is the first place that comes to my mind.”

I nodded. Oliver was everywhere in Crema, at the villa, in Bergamo, but this was our place of worship, this was where we had surrendered to each other, this was where we had become holy in each other’s arms.

“It hasn’t changed a bit.”

“Nothing in Italy ever seems to change.”

“And yet you have.” 

I turned to him, stared at him. He was right, I had changed. Meeting him had changed me. Losing him had changed me. Finding him again, I was sure, would change me some more. “People usually do. Time does that to them.”

He shrugged, smiled a bit. “It’s not a bad thing. You’re still you, just a bit taller, a bit more set. A bit wiser, I think, if that’s at all possible.”

I snorted. “You met me when I was seventeen, Oliver. It would be a tragedy if I had not grown a bit wiser since then, don’t you think?”

He hummed in agreement, put his arm around my waist, pulled me close. I rested my head on his shoulder, still facing the water.

I loved this, being close, being free to touch him, being in his arms again. It had felt impossible for so long that I couldn’t help but think of this as a miracle.

“This is a place of memories,” I told him. I turned my head up to look him in his face. “I want to make new ones. Not to replace the old ones, but to have them next to each other. To look at them five, ten, twenty years from now and be able to say, this is where we first kissed, and where we found each other again.”

I could see he was moved by my words. He kissed me, then, and it was an awkward position, and I had to stand on my toes, but I loved every second of it. I turned around, faced him completely, pulled his body flush against mine, kissed him again. It was breathtaking. My hands found his skin on autopilot, greedy, demanding. I had given him my heart, I wanted him to have my body, too. And he knew, as he always had in the past, what I was offering, and what I was asking for in return. 

I stepped back from the edge of the water, sat on the grass that was still a bit damp, pulled him on top of me as I lay down. We lost our shirts somewhere between standing and lying, clawed at our belts and buttons and zippers to get them unhooked, opened, out of the way, to get to naked skin against naked skin, and tangled legs, and blessed friction. 

Our kisses were ravenous as we bit each other’s lips, chased each other with our tongues, pushed against each other shamelessly, careless of leaving marks, of the hard ground scratching my back, of making noise. 

He wrapped his hand around us both and it was perfect, too perfect, and I had to beg him to stop, not to come yet, because I wanted him inside me, I wanted him to fuck me into the ground, and I didn’t care that we didn’t have anything to make it pleasant, I’ll take you just with spit and precome, but please, please just fuck me, fuck me now.

And he hesitated only a fraction of a second, enough to ask me if I was clean and for me to say yes, before he prepped me up and got inside me, swallowing my moans, holding my hands over my head, squeezing them hard as he fought against his orgasm, shifting to get me off as he sunk in me, over and over again, until I let myself drown in pleasure and came all over my stomach, so hard I almost didn’t notice him coming in me a few seconds later.

We had never been loud, back then, and we weren’t this time either, but the silence that followed our broken sighs, and moans, and groans felt encompassing, like a fresh blanket pulled all around us. Nature was murmuring around us as we caught our breath, chirruping, twittering, sloshing quietly against the shore. 

And as I lay under him on the grass, listening to my own heartbeat race alongside his, I thought 'dunk me, baptise me in this water where we washed away the signs of our love so long ago. Follow me naked into the river, welcome me into our religion of two, with no other acolytes, no other worshippers but us. We don’t need anyone else. We’ll be god and believer at once, and we’ll say our prayers to ourselves.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The did the doooo! LOL, sorry, it's 2 am and it's time I go to sleep.  
More is coming soon!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry it took me so long to update, guys. Almost three weeks, I can't believe it myself.   
I've been battling with deadlines since the year began and finding the time to write for fun has been a challenge.  
I am already working on the following chapter, though, so I hope I'll be able to update much more quickly from now on.
> 
> This is a bit of a 'bridge' chapter, nothing much happens in terms of action. It's just tooth-rotting fluff because Elio and Oliver deserve to be happy without interruptions for at least a few hours. But the plot will move forward quite a bit in the next one, so stay tuned <3
> 
> Enjoy!

We ended up staying at the berm the entire afternoon, swimming in the frigid water, lying on the grass next to each other, our arms barely touching, chatting about nothing of consequence, which meant the world to me because it implied the big speeches were over for now, and we could go back to talking about books, and music, and friends the other hadn’t met yet but soon would, and places we wanted to see, and memories we wanted to revive, and so many other small things that, put together, made up our lives. Things that we had so unabashedly shared back when we first had been together.

I caught myself looking at him openly, staring at the most insignificant spots of his body, being mesmerised by the way his eyelashes fluttered when he was debating a point, relearning the shape of his veins where they stood out along his wrists.

Everything in him deserved equal attention. His words, his body, his smell. Everything had to be carved into my memory, sculpted with the same reverence and artistry that Praxiteles put into his Hermes, his Apollo. He was a Greek god, and I was his prophet.

I was high on happiness, and I laughed, and talked, and kissed, and touched without restraints. Being with him at the berm, sitting on the grass, smelling the wet earth and our sweat, hearing the low tones of his voice and the chuckle of his laugh—it felt like coming home, it felt like belonging. I had nothing to hide from him, not anymore. He knew about my pain, and he knew about my forgiveness, and most of all he knew about my love, a word I would never have used back when I had first met him and recognised myself in him, and which I had avoided thinking for so long, and which was now forever on my lips, ready to be spoken out loud. There was no more awkwardness between us, no more unspoken truths lurking in the silence. We had finally been honest with each other, and we had somehow ended up at the start. But just like a heated monopoly game, we were crossing the ‘go’ space with much more than what we had when everything began. We were carrying with us treasures and ‘chance’ cards and perhaps some debits that we would have to repay sooner or later, but that looked so irrelevant at that moment that we felt like ignoring them was our best option. We were the sum of six weeks spent together and three years spent apart, and the two young men chasing each other on the golden grass of the berm, and splashing around in the cold water while challenging each other to come up with silly Latin translations for English neologisms were not the same people that once sat on the very same grass, and splashed around in the very same water, and hesitantly kissed each other because it was bound to happen. But we were close enough to them that it did not make a difference. Because we had changed, but our feelings hadn’t. 

A thing happened, that afternoon, that more than any other caught me by surprise, because it was such a natural thing, and he’d used to do it so often back then, and it was something I didn’t know I was missing until I saw it again. He smiled at me, the way he had when I had finally played Bach for him just like he had wanted it. He smiled with his head shaking a little, and his eyes big and full of incredulity and of resignation, with a hand in his hair and all his teeth showing, and tiny wrinkles framing his eyes, because I had done something so utterly unexpected, and he should have seen it coming. It was his drama-smile, as I have since started to call it in my mind. It was the smile that said, ‘I love you, even though I have no idea why. Just kidding, I know perfectly well why.’

I had surprised him by making him a ring of daisies, like the ones we would give our mothers first and our kindergarten crushes later when we were kids roaming the fields and picking up flowers. I had used the tallest daisy I could find and even so, after I had finished stringing the tiny flowers together, it had barely fit the knuckle of his pinkie. It was a ridiculous little thing, but he had looked at it on his finger with such awe, and then at me with that beautiful smile, and although it could have been better, it seemed to me I could not have given him anything that would have pleased him more at that moment, and he could not have given me anything more precious than his smile, and everything that was in it.

We still have the ring, pressed between the pages of a huge illustrated  _ Divina Commedia _ , snug inside Canto XXX of the Purgatorio, when Dante meets Beatrice once more.

*

We went back to the villa just in time for dinner. My parents had a few friends over and the evening turned out to be a loud, merry affair. We got caught up in the conversation and then I was asked to play something, and we ended up being the last ones left in the room, long after Sarah had retreated to her room and our guests had left. 

I caught my father staring at me and Oliver, nursing our drinks on the sofa. I wondered if he could feel that something had changed between us, whether it was so easy to see. But he didn’t say anything and we were left alone in the room, the empty glasses on the table the last remnants of a jolly evening. 

It was then, when I started feeling drowsy and I thought about going to bed, that I realised I didn’t know where Oliver would spend the night. 

“Are you sleeping with me tonight?” I asked him, pressing a foot into his thigh. The day had been an emotional rollercoaster and I desperately wanted it to finish on a high note. He had to stay with me that night, I needed to fall asleep against him, and to wake up with him next to me, perhaps snoring loudly, perhaps already awake and staring at me. I didn’t want to sound too needy, so I asked the question lightly, but he must have seen through me so easily, because he gave me an amused smile, took my foot into his hands, massaged it lightly. It reminded me of that day he had done the same after I had got a nosebleed, to comfort me. 

“You think we’re gonna fit into your bed?” His hands on my foot gave me goosebumps and I couldn’t keep a soft whine in when he pressed into a sore spot. He smirked and did it again.

“I guess you have a point,” I muttered, flexing my leg, trying to free my foot. “Even though I am willing to give it a try if you are. Worst case scenario one of us wakes up on the floor with no idea how he got there.”

He chuckled. “That would still not be the worst place where I have slept. We could stay outside, though, sleep in the orchard. At least we would already be on the ground there, no risk of falling.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Yeah, we’d be all ready and set to be stepped upon by Anchise, on his way to harvest peaches at the break of dawn…”

His head snapped toward me as our minds went to the same place simultaneously, and though I felt myself blushing at the awkward memory, I held his gaze and smiled, and he smiled back, because we had found a solution to our problem, and it was just perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's such a short chapter, but can you imagine the time I wasted researching Monopoly terminology in English just to find out that the beautifully-Italian-named 'imprevisti' cards (literally 'unforeseen events') are called something so monotonous as 'community chest' cards in English? It completely broke my """poetic""" metaphor! That sentence was supposed to read "We were carrying with us treasures and ‘imprevisti’ [as in 'unexpected events that separated us' AND 'cards that you use to play monopoly'] and perhaps some debits". I had to resort to the other set of cards, 'chances', which makes the sentence sound much more hopeful and optimistic. Urg. Why can't I be as dramatic in English as I am in Italian?
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading, more is coming soon, I promise! :*


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

The attic was as messy as ever, and there was no electricity, but there was an old double mattress there, which we covered with a sheet I had stolen from Mafalda’s cupboard. At that moment, moving around the room avoiding old furniture and boxes, chasing each other with our whispers and our hands because we only had a tiny torch with us and the room was almost pitch black, we didn’t see the dust, or the shabbiness of the place. We didn’t care about the stuffiness of the air. We didn’t think about sleeping on the floor or the spiders that lived on the beams above us. We just made the bed haphazardly and settled on it as if we were in a suite. And when we were both lying on the old mattress, close enough to feel each other’s presence but not yet touching, I finally let out a relieved sigh. It took me by surprise, somehow, to feel the tension leaving my body. I had not realised it was there in the first place. It had sneaked up on me quietly, unnoticed, and had settled deep at the bottom of my stomach, weighing me down. With a tiny pang of guilt, I understood I still didn’t trust him completely, still doubted, still wondered if he would pick her over me, have second thoughts about all this. Yet, there he was, mere inches separating our bodies, quietly breathing in the darkness, a shadow, a silhouette bathed in moonlight. He turned to me and I could see his eyes twinkle, catching the silver speckles of light filtering through the windows. It took my breath away, to have him so close, looking like marble in the darkness, and yet staring at me with a softness that made me swallow the lump that was suddenly in my throat. Never stop looking at me like this, I begged silently as I reached out and touched his lips with my fingertips, tracing the shape of his smile. Never stop looking at me as if I’d hung the stars that I see shining in your eyes. 

And I had to kiss him; a peck, a reverent touch of my lips turned ravenous as I chased his mouth with my whole body, climbing on top of him, sinking into him. I kissed him with more than just lips and teeth and tongue. I kissed him with my hands and arms, and knees and legs, with every inch of skin that touched him as we rushed to undress because we could not stand to be separated by fabric anymore. I kissed him with my eyelashes, fluttering against his cheek as he wrapped his hand around me, and with my throat as I swallowed his groans and he swallowed mine. I kissed him with my heart so unaccustomed to happiness that it felt it was just about to burst free from my chest. And he kissed me back, just as forcefully, just as sincerely, and with his whole self, and in his arms I felt another piece of myself fall back into place.

*

I woke up at the first light of day. Oliver was snoring softly, one arm around my waist, the other under the only pillow we had brought up to the attic from my room. I blinked as my eyes focused on his relaxed face and I was transported back to our first morning together in Bergamo, when I had watched him sleep for hours, unwilling to move, unwilling to wake him, just losing myself into his tiny snores, the curve of his body, the strong lines of his profile. He was the most beautiful man I had ever met. And I knew he was flawed, and he had broken my heart, and yet there I was again, next to him on a makeshift bed, in silent adoration, still able to love him against all odds. I decided, in the haziness of the morning, that my heart wasn’t broken, after all. And that he had not stolen the pieces that would make it work, he had only borrowed them, and he had come back to me to return them.

So I watched him as he slept, my head close to his on our shared pillow, and I let my mind return to Bergamo, and the giddiness of being finally alone in a city where nobody knew us, in a hotel where nobody paid us any attention, in a room that was covered in discarded clothes we had stopped bothering to put on. I wanted all that once more, I wanted those perfect days etched into my memory, so rarely revisited because they hurt just as much as they gave me joy. I wanted to go away with him, far from his wife and my parents, far from Mafalda’s suspicious stares, far from friends and acquaintances and old men playing poker in a bar who would see right through us if we so much as showed ourselves in public. I wanted to be alone with him, I craved the freedom of an empty house for ourselves, just like that one time when everyone had been out running errands and we had fucked without restraint, not thinking about the tell-tale creaks of the bed or our moans being carried outside by the wind. So when he stirred next to me not long after, pulling me close, burying his face into the crook of my neck, placing a soft kiss on my chin, I held him flush against me and whispered ‘Let’s go away, Oliver’ into his ear.

I felt him shiver as he pressed his body against me, let out a sigh that I felt against my cheek. 

“Where to?” His voice was rough with sleep and so, so low.

“Milan?” I had thought about it. Everyone was here, the house was empty, and it wouldn’t cost us anything.

“What will we tell your parents?”

I exhaled. The truth? I didn’t know if I was ready for that. I knew my parents would be supportive but I realised perhaps I wasn’t ready to share Oliver with them yet. 

“You need to do something at the university. I want to meet some friends from high school. Whatever. My father will know right away in any case. But he’ll play along, I think.”

He hummed his agreement against my neck but I sensed he was hesitating to speak.

“What?” I nudged him a bit.

“Sarah will know, too. I don’t know how she’ll feel about it—being left behind, knowing fully well what we’ll be doing… I don’t know how she’ll take it.”

“Do you think she’d rather have us around, being—being us, being together right in front of her eyes?”

He sighed, turned on his back. He stared at the ceiling with a bitter smile. “I guess you’re right. I feel like shit about it, though. I think I’ll feel like shit about all this for years to come.”

I understood he was talking about this whole situation, having left me, having married Sarah, having left her, too, but I had nothing useful to say about that so I settled on the next best thing. “If you’d rather not go we can stay here, keep things quiet until we go back to the States and figure things out.”

He puffed out a small laugh, turned to look at me again. “As if we could ever keep things quiet, Elio. I want nothing more than to be alone with you somewhere we will not be disturbed. We’ll make this happen. Let me just talk to Sarah first. Do you think your parents will mind having her here on her own? If she wants to stay, that is.”

“They like her very much, I think they’ll be very happy to have her for as long as she wishes to stay.” I sighed as I thought of the woman sleeping alone in my old room, in a bed she was supposed to share with Oliver. “Will she be alright, though?”

He was silent for a while. “I think she will be, eventually. She is one of the strongest people I know. And one of the most honest. I might be the reason why we are splitting up, but it was a shared choice. As she put it, now she is going to be free to find herself her own Elio.”

“She really said that?”

He chuckled a bit. “She really did. She's sarcastic like that. But she deserves to be happy, as happy as I am with you. It could never have happened with me.”

“Are you really happy with me?” The question slipped out of my lips before I could stop it.

“Can’t you tell, Elio?” He touched my cheek with his hand, turned my face so that he was looking into my eyes. “Of course I am. Of course.”

“Even if it’ll ruin everything you’ve built for yourself? Your marriage, maybe your career—”

“I made my choice, Elio. Probably the first right one in a long time. I won’t regret anything as long as we get to be together, and as long as you won’t either.”

I looked at him, into his eyes which were so steady, and sure, and honest, and I could only nod my own promise. “I’ve waited for you even as I thought you’d never come back to me. No regrets, Oliver, not a single one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And sooooo... they're going to Milan. Alone time, oh precious alone time ;) Do I have plans for Elio and Oliver...  
More is coming soon, stay tuned!
> 
> And as always, thanks for reading and commenting <3


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Milan, here we come!  
Enjoy!

Milan did, indeed, happen. As expected, my father had taken me aside when I announced we’d be gone for a few days, asked me if I was sure I’d be alright with him in Milan. I had assured him I would, holding his long, assessing stare. 

“You look happy,” he had told me. I had not tried very hard to hide my smile. 

“He looks happy, too.”

I had snorted, said: “Subtle, Dad.”

He had chuckled a bit, dragged me into a bear hug. “Does Sarah know?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll do our best to keep her mind off the subject while you two are gone. We’ll make sure she enjoys herself. Perhaps you could ask Marzia to come by one day, see if they get along.”

I had followed his advice and given Marzia a call, even though I hadn’t been so sure Sarah would appreciate the company of my best friend. She had come by a couple of days later, as Oliver and I were packing our bags. By dinner time, they had already been making plans for the following day.

We had left with the first available train that wouldn’t take seven hours to reach Milan from Crema, about three days after we had somehow stumbled into each other's arms again. Anchise had driven us to the train station, helped us with the small bags we had packed. The journey had been excruciating, sitting next to each other in a tiny compartment opposite an elderly couple, unable to touch each other, staring silently out of the window just to avoid giving us away. It had not felt like our trip to Bergamo. Back then, we had travelled into heartbreak head-first, we had spent the bus ride and our last days together chatting, joking, doing everything we could to distract ourselves from the inevitability of Oliver leaving, of me being left behind. 

This time, I was burning inside not with suppressed desperation, but with the gut feeling that we were not stealing days from a future life that wanted us apart. It didn’t feel like we were extorting days we were not supposed to have from a life that didn’t want to surrender them. It felt like we were living the first of our days together, gifted to us, given freely, almost carelessly because where that day came from there were plenty others.

Milano Centrale was bustling with life when we arrived, full of disoriented tourists looking for shuttles and taxis. We made our way to the underground, navigating the crowd with the ease that comes from having lived enough years in a metropolis, sweating as we stood in a packed carriage, watching the stations go by, elbowing our way out of the train when we arrived at Sant’Ambrogio. 

My parents’ flat, the place where I had spent my whole life before moving to the States, was about fifteen minutes on foot from the station, and another fifteen from the university, making it the ideal place both for a professor that hated driving in the city and a child that wanted to explore Milan on his own, much to my parents’ chagrin. I thought of telling Oliver about the many times I had ridden the underground without my parents knowing, discovering new neighbourhoods, the most random places to read and listen to music. I could tell him of the time I had been reading such an enthralling book on the subway that I missed my stop and reached the end of the line only to realise it was the last train of the night. But I was too focused on getting us both to the flat in as little time as possible. I knew it was his first time in the city, and I was planning on showing him around at some point. Right there and then, though, I needed to be somewhere where all those people we had met during our journey from Crema would disappear. I needed to be alone with him, I needed to touch him, to feel his body against mine. 

He must have shared the feeling, or at least understood what I was thinking, because he did not stop to take in the view, he did not ask where we were exactly, what that building was, or that other. He just walked by my side, and every time his arm brushed against mine I felt a jolt across my whole body.

I took the stairs two steps at a time, got to the second floor of the building with the echo of Oliver’s chuckle spurring me to move faster, to get inside already. 

“Are you in a hurry?” he asked as I fumbled with my keys. He stood way too close for me to feign indifference. 

“Yes.” Urgent, exasperated, needy. I didn’t care if he heard all that in my voice as I opened the door, threw the bags on the floor and practically jumped him as I smashed our mouths together. 

He laughed, pushed me flush against him, held my head still to kiss me properly, deeply. 

“Slow down,” he muttered against my lips, brushing them with his, over and over again. He was teasing me, smiling against my skin. 

“Why?”

“Because we can, now.” His hands found the hem of my t-shirt, got underneath it, came to rest on my hips, heavy, grounding me. He kissed my earlobe, spoke directly into my ear, sending shivers down my spine. “I can take you apart, inch by inch, for hours, and nobody is gonna interrupt us. Nobody is gonna walk in on us and make a scene.”

I pressed myself against him, pulled him impossibly closer. “I’m not going to last for hours, Oliver. I don’t  _ want _ to last for hours.”

He chuckled again and I felt his laugh against my chest. “Always so impatient.”

“Yeah, that’s why you love me.” It slipped out of my mouth before I realised what the words meant, a joke that was way more loaded than I intended. Oliver had yet to say those precise words to me. Those three little words which I had spat out to him almost in vengeance, and then as an apology, and an explanation, and a plea. He had said he was in love with me. He had implied he loved me. He had conveyed it in every way but with those three words that too often feel either fake or forced. I stiffened and I felt his hands grip my hips harder, squeezing them a bit. 

“Among other reasons,” he said after a heartbeat.

“What reasons?”

He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher, pensiveness behind a cheeky smile. “I —” 

He seemed to change his mind before he could properly form a sentence. “The thing is, I don’t quite know if I can pinpoint a reason. They all feel too vacuous. I don’t think they have invented words good enough to describe them. Or perhaps I don’t actually have a reason. I just do.”

“You do?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Of course I do, Elio. Of course I love you.”

I smiled at him, and I want to think it was a calm, poised smile, but it most certainly was the biggest grin I had ever produced, and it must have looked deranged, but he kissed me anyway, and he held me tight, and muttered ‘I don’t know how you’re still doubting that, but ask as many times you want, my answer won’t change.”

And I whispered ‘I will,’ and if it came out a bit muffled it was because I was talking against his shirt, and not because I was choking up a bit. 

He held me for a long moment before speaking. “C’mon, Elly Belly, show me around.” I could feel his smug grin without seeing it as I pushed him away in mock horror, threw him an outraged stare. 

“I have no idea who told you to call me that, but hell no. Just no. It’ll feel like it’s my father talking and if that’s not a turn off I don’t know what is.”

He raised both his hands in acquiescence, laughing, and I led the way down the hall, pointing to the rooms as we passed them. Kitchen, dining room, living room, my parents’ bedroom, bathroom. My room was at the far end of the corridor, big enough to have a double bed and a large desk covered in books and notes, but not much else. 

I had not been to Milan since New Year’s eve, and most of my stuff was now in New York, but it still felt like home. I opened the shutters to let the light in and half-sat, half-fell on the bed, bouncing on the mattress and spreading my limbs wide. I groaned as I felt my body relax.

Oliver was looking at me from the doorway, leaning against the doorframe.

“That bed seems comfy.”

“Care to find out for yourself?”

“I might be persuaded.” He walked up to the bed, stood right next to me. 

“Whatever will I have to do to convince you?”

He hummed, pretending to think about it. “You’re doing a rather good job just by laying on it like that, to be honest.” 

I blushed but I held his gaze. The hunger I saw in his eyes matched the one I was feeling.  “Like what, Oliver?”

“Like you’re putting yourself on offer.”

“Well, then. You should put in a bid before someone else does.”

“I’d go bankrupt to make sure nobody gets their hands on you.” He said it jokingly, but I heard the truth behind his words. I reached out to him, pulled him on the bed. 

“Good thing I already belong to you, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots more is coming - in tiny bits, as always ;) thanks for reading!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

Oliver kept his word, indeed went the extra mile to show just how slowly he could take me. He knew I was desperate for him, he knew just how on edge I had been during the journey, how much I needed him at that moment. He knew and I could see the same want reflected in his eyes, but he still pinned me deliberately to the bed, fought off my greedy hands and the awkward thrusts of my hips. He kissed me slowly, achingly so, but with such intensity I thought he would swallow me whole. I found myself lost in the kiss, unable to focus on anything but his lips, relinquishing that tension that had stiffened my muscles and made my movements blunt, graceless. And then, when we came up for air, minutes, hours, days later, he whispered ‘let me’ against my lips, and he didn’t add anything to that, but I nodded anyway, kissed him again and made it powerful, because I wanted him to remember I was his equal and he could not overpower me, yet all the same I was surrendering to him, willingly, letting him take control. 

I hadn’t known I needed it until I actually let myself fall back against the mattress, spread out on a rumpled sheet, feeling naked even though I still had all my clothes on, and the safest I had ever felt in someone else’s presence. 

Oliver would not give me what I was demanding, what I was screaming with my body I wanted as quickly and perfunctorily as possible. He kept his hands on my face, used his whole body to keep me still, placed a single, tiny kiss on the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply. I shivered at the sensation and I knew he felt it run through my body, because he murmured ‘so sensitive’ against my skin and I felt the smile in his voice. 

I wanted to curse his composure, his ability to take his time with this, with me. I wanted him to be feeling as wild as I was, to lose control for us both, to let us just take, take, take, as fast as it could be, but at the same time I wanted this, his undivided attention, this dragging out of every touch that amplified each sensation. We had never really done anything like this. Sex with Oliver, even in the past few days, even in Bergamo, had always implied that a part of our attention was on what was around us. Was everyone at the villa fast asleep? Was anyone coming down the path to the berm, impossibly lost in the Italian countryside? Was the maid cleaning the room next door? Would she hear us and report us to the management? We had never had the chance to be truly alone, somewhere we knew absolutely no-one would come barging in, somewhere we could be loud and careless and completely focused on each other, and nothing else.

Oliver was set on making this time count, and I was willing to let him. I wanted him to. So even though a part of me was still urging me to just find a way to come as soon as possible, I let Oliver take me apart bit by bit,  _ adagio. _

He did not hold back. Everything was heightened, every caress, every kiss, even the ghost of his breath against my skin made me react. He revelled in my pleasure, in the way I responded to him, in the way I welcomed his hands on me. Our bodies knew each other well, they had never really forgotten what the other looked like, felt like, but we were gaining a new awareness of ourselves together, of how we felt when we could be with each other, unrestrained. It was like watching a painting that had been hanging on the wall our entire lives, only to discover we had never fully understood what it represented.

Every piece of clothing we shed was a new conquest, the discovery of the Americas, of Asia, the Arctic. We redrew the map of our bodies together, traced new lines, more accurate, more faithful to the original. It was bliss when our bodies finally met without the mediation of unwanted fabric, just skin on skin, hands grabbing whatever part of the other we could reach. It was passion in its highest form, so heartfelt that it filled us up to the brim but did not overcome us. It was pure sensation, and pure emotion, unrestrained but not out of control. Every touch was deliberate, every movement necessary to perform our grand sonata. Oliver took me there, to a state where I was shivering with pleasure but not drowning in it. He showed me what it was like to be worshipped body and soul, and what it felt like to worship in kind. And when we finally did come, stealing each other’s gasps and whimpers from our joined mouths, I understood what it really felt like to make love, rather than to just have sex.

***

We noticed the house was stifling hot only afterwards, as we lay on my bed next to each other, out of breath and completely spent in the best of ways. Oliver was on the side of the bed closest to the windows, and the sun filtering through the curtains drew deep shadows on his face. He was achingly beautiful, his chest rising and falling with his deep breaths, a small smile painted on his lips.

I lifted myself up, leaning on one arm, and kissed him softly, without pushing, for I wanted to know if his smile had a taste. He hummed, and I felt his lips stretch wider. 

I chuckled breathily and he raised his head a bit, looked at me with amused eyes. “What?”

I shook my head. 

“What?” he pushed, poking me on my side jokingly.

It was such a silly thing to say, but I was feeling carefree in a way I had quite forgotten I could be, so I said it all the same. “You taste like the sun.”

He pulled me close and I settled in the crook of his armpit, my head coming to rest on his chest. 

“You’re the one named after the Greek god of the sun, Elio.”

“Then it must be a sign,” I mused, placing tiny kisses wherever my lips would reach.

“Yeah?" He seemed to think about it for a few moments. "Perhaps you’ve rubbed off on me.”

“You’re more myself than I am.” I said it lightly, but he cupped my face, made me look at him. 

“Will you call me by your name again, then?”

I kissed the palm of his hand, working up an answer. “Will you call me by yours?”

“I’ve never really stopped in my mind.”

It felt huge, this time around, it felt loaded. The first time he had asked me to do that I had done it without really understanding, my name leaving my lips more like a question than a declaration. I had sensed what it meant, but not fully grasped the consequences of giving him my name and receiving his in exchange until much later, as I held on to the receiver as if it were a lifeline, his voice sighing his name from the other side of the ocean, mine falling out of my mouth on repeat, begging him to remember.

I knew now, I knew what he was asking, and I knew what he was promising, and as I whispered my name and he whispered his back at me, we recognised what our bodies had already felt earlier, and what our desire had already laid out at our feet. We acknowledged the other in us, and we finally became one once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I must admit I'm rather fond of this chapter. I very rarely like my sex scenes, but for reasons unknown I'm quite satisfied with this one.  
It makes me go 'awww' way to much, though, so not really sure I've nailed it (pun not intended, but still fun).  
More is coming soon, as always!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Guess who's back, back again..._ 🎵
> 
> Right, so. I know most of you know I live in Italy. Some of you even reached out to ask how things were, which surprised me to no end and seriously moved me. These are such hard times for everyone, regardless of where you are right now. Please, stay safe. It's been a rough month here, people. I am lucky enough that my family and close friends are all fine, but I am constantly hearing from my colleagues in Bergamo and the situation there is dire. I am heartbroken, for them and for my country, which is flawed in so many ways but is fighting back with such fierceness it makes me proud to look outside the window and see empty streets and litter nobody is picking up because no-one is leaving their homes.  
It took me a while to get there, to the pride and the awareness we will somehow get through this.
> 
> I did my best with this chapter. The dissonance of writing about Milan in the summer, bustling with life and unabashed happiness, while on TV I keep seeing its deserted streets and forlorn atmosphere was strong. I turned it into a love letter for a city I have visited enough times to lose count. 
> 
> Things will get better.  
Hold on tight in the meantime. Listen to what your governments tell you to do, and please, please watch out for each other.

We lay on my bed for a while, time passing without us really noticing, letting our hands roam lightly on our bodies, our lips meeting softly. I was sated, my body humming in unison with his, still basking in the pleasure we had given each other. Oliver would not let go of me, his arm finding me as we rearranged our bodies on the mattress, pulling me close to him. I revelled in it, because Oliver had rarely been so overtly needy, seeking comfort in me the way he currently was. I had always thought of him as the one steering us, the one enough in control of himself that he did not need reassurance. Yet here he was, chasing my body as if he physically needed me to promise I wasn’t running away from him, burying his face into my skin to inhale the smell of sex, of us together, as if to remind himself it was real, clutching my hand, kissing my knuckles. 

I loved being able to take care of him as he had of me so many times before, to give him what he needed, with small touches, tiny kisses, sticky embraces. Intimacy at its deepest, now that our bodies were pliant and satisfied, no longer aching for release. I held him, and let him hold me, and we dozed off for some time, the sun slowly shifting away from our window, the light dimming out, shadows taking over. 

When I stirred next, the room was simply too warm to be comfortable in each other’s arms. Oliver shifted next to me and sighed. 

“Wanna take a shower?” I mumbled, turning my head to look at him.

He hummed in assent. “Let’s make it a cold one, uh?”

I stood up with a groan, slowly. Everything felt dazed, as if we were immersed in water, but it was just the unbearable heat of mid-July in Milan. We got to the bathroom on wobbly legs, holding onto each other to step into the bathtub. The shower nozzle was too low for the water to actually hit our heads, and it could not be moved, but it was powerful enough to spray us both and relieve us from the heat.

I shivered as the cold water touched my overheated skin and Oliver put his arms around me, pulling me flush against his body. We stayed in the shower for a long time, just letting the water cool our skin, exchanging kisses lazily, soaping each other up, wiggling away when a hand fell on too ticklish a spot, chuckling together when we got too handsy and we almost slipped and fell.

Eventually, it got late enough that we ventured out to eat, picking a big, loud pizzeria close to the flat. They knew me there, but not well enough that they would care who I was with. Over dinner, between a bite and the other, I told Oliver about all the places I wanted to show him. I told him I wanted to take him to every tourist spot and then to my favourite parts of the city. I explained that there were always queues to see the Duomo and that the time spent waiting in line was worth every second. I told him of the Scala, and the museums, and the streets bustling with elegant ladies looking for the latest fashion trends. I whispered conspiratorially about the tiny bookshop in the Crescenzago neighbourhood that only sold used books and made sure they were always stocked up on books in English, and then of the Casa 770, a replica of the house where the Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson had lived in Brooklyn. I rambled about the Navigli and how beautiful they looked with all the people chatting outside the bars, street lights and neon signs reflecting on the water. I promised I would take him to the Cinema Alcione and we would sit in the darkest spot of the room, not paying attention to whatever movie they were showing. Or was it too much, I asked, suddenly wondering if I had rushed too quickly ahead. He looked at me fondly and shook his head. Not too much. And if we couldn’t see and do everything this time, he said, there would be plenty of other occasions.

It startled me to hear it, in a pleasant way. Plenty of other occasions. He must have caught the surprise in my eyes because he reached out and covered my hand with his, discreetly, just for a moment. “There will be, Elio,” he repeated. “Enough to fill a lifetime.”

*

Our days in Milan strolled by lazily as we explored the city, scattering new memories in familiar places, giving meaningless spots a newfound value just because we kissed there when it was dark and nobody was passing by. We redrew the map of Milan, placing pins on it that only partially aligned with those highlighting the local views. 

We did go to Cinema Alcione late one night, picking a movie that had been out for some time to avoid a crowded theatre. We sat in the far back and we spent the time making out like teenagers, sheltered by the darkness.

On our last day in the city, we walked to the Navigli and waited for the sunset, drinking wine and nibbling at a tray of cheese and cold cuts. We let the atmosphere carry us away, staying out late, befriending a group of Irish tourists that had overheard us talking in English and had asked us to help them order their drinks. We ended up joining them on the first couple of stops of their pub crawl, before we decided to head home. By then, late into the night, we were both tipsy enough that we did not care if anyone saw us kissing against a wall or walking so close that it was impossible to mistake us for anything but lovers. We behaved recklessly, pulling at each other, teasing, making out when the tension became too much, unmindful of the street lights above our heads revealing us to the insomniacs looking out of their windows. We laughed at each other, and kissed over and over again, and it took twice the time to get to the flat but we loved every second of the way there.

We stumbled to my bed fending off each other’s hands, which seemed to be unable to stop searching for naked skin. I fell on Oliver, eliciting a huff from him and barely giving him the time to catch his breath before I kissed him fiercely. We were rutting against each other, impatient, uninhibited. I yanked off his clothes and mine carelessly, more forcefully than usual, straddling his thighs, holding him still as I smashed our mouths back together. I was insatiable as Oliver’s hands roamed my back, grabbing my ass to push me against him, moaning against my lips.

“Elio. Elio, Elio,” he muttered urgently when we came up for air, stopping me before I could kiss him again. 

“What?”

“Fuck me, will you?”

My mouth opened in surprise. “Really?”

“Really.”

I could not begin to think about it, or else I risked coming on the spot. “Do you mean it?”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course I mean it. It’s not like it’s a first. Don’t you want to?”

I pushed down against him, my hard on pressing against his. “What do you think?”

He smirked and I knew he knew how much of a turn on the mere idea was for me. “Good. Then get on with it.”

I wanted to, I desperately wanted to, but I had to ask. “How long has it been?”

“You know how long.” 

I did, and it sent shivers down my spine to know that nobody had touched him like this after me. I was so full of pent-up energy that I thought I could burst into flames if I didn’t find release soon, and Oliver seemed equally wired under me. I kissed him just to give my body something to do, just to focus on something other than what I was about to do to him. 

It took all of my concentration to make it good for him, to grant him the time to get ready for me, to suppress the urge to just take what was offered. I showered him with my undivided attention, prepping him up with my fingers and tongue, doing my best to ignore the obscene sounds he was making while simultaneously basking in them. By the time he was begging me to just get on with it, I could not think of anything else but his warm body enveloping mine.

I did it slowly, shaking with the effort of not pushing too much, not going too fast, not hurting him, but he cursed under me and pulled me into a kiss, and then into him, roughly, ruthlessly, and I had to swallow a shout at the sensation of being ever so close to him. 

“I won’t break, Elio. Just do it. Do it properly. Let loose.”

It was his voice, more than his words, that pushed me over the edge and made me move without inhibitions. 

It was sensory overload, to be doing this again after all this time, pushing against him — with him — so freely, so sincere in our quest for shared pleasure.

It was wild, out of control, pure instinct kicking in as we revelled in the sensation of our joined bodies, giving as much as we were taking from each other.

I came as if my orgasm was being torn from me, as if I didn’t want this to ever end and I was just regretfully letting go because it was the only possible outcome. He rode it out, muttering half-formed words which could have been curses or blessings alike, following me not long after, as I was still buried deep inside him, trying to learn how to breathe again.

"Now we are the same," he whispered, and it made me wonder whether what had happened had been the consequence of unchecked passion or of some sort of debt Oliver thought he needed to repay.

“We’ve always been the same.”

He smiled his small smile, the one he used when he was feeling sheepish because I had caught him in the middle of a thought that was as irrational as understandable.

“You didn’t have to do it just to—” I finished the sentence with a twist of my wrist, as if to say ‘to match me’ or ‘to be like me’ or ‘to let me be the top for once’ or anything else he felt was a good complement to those words.

“I didn’t do it _ just to— _” he half-mocked me. “I wanted to. I’ve wanted to for so long I had to relearn it was a possibility. And then I had to find once more a way to ask for it.”

“Well, does this make you happy?” 

He heard the echo of his own question, so long ago, and gave me an amused smile. 

“Yeah, I believe it does.”  
  
  



	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeello! Here's a bit of a bridge chapter, moving our boys around the world a bit, setting a new scene for them.   
I hope you like it.  
Enjoy!

Oliver’s last few days in Italy went by in a rush. We returned to Crema only a couple of days before he and Sarah were set to go back to the States and my family made sure they got the chance to say goodbye to everyone they had met during their holiday. We had guests over for lunch and dinner, and people stopped by the villa to stay a few hours at the pool with us.

It felt different, this time around, hugging him on the platform after saying goodbye to Sarah, the train ready to depart behind him. We stared at each other and we found no uncertainty in each other’s eyes. No sorrow, no muted despair this time around. Just quiet awareness of what we meant for each other. His nod was not the heartbroken goodbye that had taken our voices away three years earlier. It was confirmation of what we already knew: that we would be together again soon. I was bound to return to New York at the end of August and he had offered to pick me up at the airport. 

My parents stood right behind me, waving at Oliver and Sarah as they climbed onto the coach, cordially telling them they were both very welcome to visit whenever they wanted — actually, that they couldn’t wait to have them over again soon. I knew they were sincere in their invitation: they wanted Oliver back because he would be with me, and Sarah because they had grown very fond of her, and she of them. She had hugged me before boarding the train, muttered  _ don’t be a stranger when you come back to the city _ . I could only nod and be grateful she didn’t hate me.

So we stood on the platform, waving as the train left the station. And as it took up speed and quickly disappeared into the horizon, I felt no trace of that emptiness that had crushed my chest three years ago.

*

I spent the rest of summer doing what I always did in Crema, reading, going out with friends, playing the piano, transcribing music. Our new guest came and went, and he was a cordial enough guy, and I showed him around without feeling it was a chore. 

A couple of days before my flight, I followed my father into his study while my mother and Mafalda cleaned up and our guest worked on the latest revisions of his work. It was not unusual for us to spend some time alone in his room after dinner, and we settled on the old sofa, each with his book, to read in silence for a while. It was a hot evening, too warm even for late August, and I had trouble focusing on my book. I was feeling skittish, unsettled as I had not been for the past weeks. 

“I can hear you thinking, Elio, and it’s so loud I can’t make out the words on the page,” my father muttered gruffly, but there was a smile in his eyes as he looked up from his book to stare at me. “What’s nagging at you?”

I hesitated before speaking, because it felt silly even in my head, but he waited, and eventually I asked him. “What if he changes his mind?”

I didn’t have to explain who ‘he’ was, nor what he might change his mind about. My father understood, and though his eyebrows rose slightly in surprise, he simply tilted his head and looked at me a bit more intently. 

“What makes you think he might?”

I shook my head. I didn’t have a good answer. I had too many. 

“Life,” I ended up saying. “He has a life in the States, a good one. A safe one. How do I fit into that, dad?”

I saw him weighing his words carefully. “Perfectly,” he said. “You fit into that perfectly. Because he has made space for you.”

“He has, hasn’t he?”

My father smiled. “I think he has, Elio. He just needed the right motivation. It’s not going to be easy, being together. But then life rarely is, which makes it all the more worth living.”

“I just— I know he’s chosen me, I know he meant every word. But I cannot help thinking he’ll realise it’s just not worth it.” By which I meant, of course, that I was not worth it.

My father clicked his tongue, shook his head. “My guess is he’s already tried convincing himself it was not worth it. He went back home, he got married, he settled down. And all the same his choices led him back to you. He won’t make the same mistake twice.”

I nodded, but I was fidgety and my father stared at me with his piercing eyes.

“Elio, forgive me my bluntness… Do  _ you  _ think he’s worth it?”

Yes, I wanted to say without a second thought. How can you even start doubting that? Of course he’s worth it. I have been waiting for him for the past three years, and before then I had been waiting for him my entire life. Yes, he is. Yes, he will always be. Yes, yes, yes.

But indeed second thoughts were clouding my mind, which was the precise reason I was sitting on that dusty sofa next to my father, and I was pouring out my doubts for him to see.

“Rationally, I cannot help but think that it will be so hard for him, so hard. And I don’t know that I can bear to be the one reason that made his life so difficult to thread through.”

“Ah, but Elio, there’s the flaw in your reasoning. There’s nothing rational about what you have with him. You cannot go about dissecting emotions as if they were solid bodies. It would be like trying to cut smoke with a knife.”

He was right, of course, and I had known all along, but I had needed to hear it out loud, to have it spelt clearly before me for me to see and understand. I nodded and picked up my book again, but my father was not finished. 

“Look, Elio,” he said, “you are allowed to have this. Remember that when your mind sets you up against the world. It doesn’t matter that Oliver is a man, it doesn’t matter that you’ll have to fight against outdated prejudices, it doesn’t matter that you won’t be able to make it official in any legal way. You are allowed to have this, as long as you let yourself have it.”

It was the kindest thing my father had ever told me, and the truest, most sincere blessing he could give me. For by saying it out loud, by making me confront my fears, he showed me that all I needed was my own permission to be with him, and that nobody else had a say in this.

I didn’t need to express my gratitude out loud; my father smiled looking at me over his glasses and then turned back to his book.

But after that night, I never let myself doubt again.

So when I landed in New York later that week and dragged my luggage all the way through customs and into the arrivals lounge, when I spotted him and dropped my suitcase and automatically tried to rein in the grin that was blooming on my face because we were in public, because people might see and judge, I heard my father’s words echo in my head and I let my mouth spread wide in the biggest, most foolish smile. I ran to him and hugged him so tightly I thought I might sprain something and I didn’t let go after the amount of time that was considered acceptable for a hug between friends. And he didn’t either. And as we held each other for a small infinity, the world did not stop spinning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, more is coming soon, and it's exciting, and I'm not yet done with Elio and Oliver, but I feel like I'm slowly approaching the end of this story, so hold on tight for the last few chapters!


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello. So. Turns out that writing Elio and Oliver in New York in the Eighties is way more difficult than I thought. Uh. I am striving to keep it realistic but since 1. I haven't lived through the Eighties, 2. I've never been to NY, and 3. I'm obsessed with historical accuracy but there's only so much I can google before I end up in a downward spiral of Wikipedia articles, I guess we'll all have to roll with whatever I can put together.  
I swear to God I caught myself googling professors that taught at Columbia in 1986 for an hour before realising I could just, you know... make up a character.  
This is going to be hell to finish :'D  
Enjoy!

New York at the end of summer was a sight to behold. The streets were bustling with people in shorts and questionable tank tops, nose-deep in intricate maps. Sweaty businessmen in full suits waved through the tourists with an air of desperation. Construction workers bellowed at each other from the tops of their buildings. Taxis honked at careless pedestrians. Long queues formed outside the theatres on Broadway, a testimony to the enduring success of  _ Cats. _ It was chaos, of the sort that somehow worked. The whole city seemed pervaded by an eagerness to enjoy the last weeks of good weather and holidays before autumn swooped in and brought rain, cold, and work commitments. Oliver and I did not witness much of that atmosphere for the first two days after I arrived. We spent them holed up in Oliver’s new flat, which was still mostly filled with boxes, barely leaving the bedroom to get food. They were bliss, those first few days in the city, sheltered by the world, just me and him in a barely furnished house, making love until our bodies gave up and continuing with our words and our laughter. Nobody interrupted us, nobody phoned, nobody came knocking on Oliver’s door to welcome him to his new building. We took and we gave eagerly, we demanded and we relinquished, we shared, most of all, everything that we felt worthy, and some things we didn’t really care much about. 

Life caught up with us on the third day, blessedly in the least intrusive way. Oliver’s phone rang, and he came back to bed with news of a meeting he had to attend at work. It seemed like a good moment to set both our usual lives back in motion. After all, I had to practice daily, he had his courses to prepare. We had known all along that it would not be like our time in Italy, and we were grateful for the forty-eight hours we got as a bonus upon my arrival in the city. The morning after, we kissed one last time near the door of the flat. Then I headed to my room near Juilliard, he headed to the university, and life went back to normal, but better.

We fell into a routine easily, those first few weeks of the semester. Oliver’s flat was near Columbia, close enough to Central Park that he kept up his morning run. Mine, a tiny studio that could barely hold the few things I had brought with me from Italy, was about half an hour on foot from his. More often than not, Oliver made his way up to mine, woke me up with coffee and a kiss, and ran back home in time for a shower and a change of clothes. When I managed to tempt him, he would tumble into bed with me, lavishing me with raw kisses, coffee all but forgotten. Those mornings we would shower together before he headed back home by subway to get changed. After the third time it happened, he started leaving a change of clothes at mine so that he could travel directly to the university. Life was good. My last year at Juilliard was setting out to be most challenging and I was looking forward to digging my fingers into wonderfully complex music. Oliver was working his way up the university ladder. We were both busy during the week, focused on our careers, but we made a rule of spending the weekends together, mostly in Oliver’s flat. It was a half-decent two-bedroom place, with a tiny kitchen and an old bathroom with a bathtub just big enough to hold the two of us. Oliver had chosen it for its cosy sitting room covered in bookshelves, he had told me once, and for the second room that he could use as his study. In the first weeks after my return, we slowly went through the boxes that covered most of the floor area. By late September, everything Oliver had brought with him after his divorce found its place in the flat, and some of my stuff appeared in the bedroom and bathroom. Late one morning on a Saturday, we folded the last cardboard box, gave the flat a long look to make sure it really was the last, and sighed in relief.

The place looked bigger and far emptier without all the boxes cramming it. We stood in the middle of the sitting room, side by side, and contemplated the space. Oliver hummed, sporting a small frown, looking pensive.

“Don’t you think it’s too empty now?”

I nodded. The place was tidy but looked too cold and impersonal. An hour later, we were at Home Depot. 

It happened as we were watching a leather sofa, debating the pros and cons of a piece of furniture to which naked skin would unfailingly adhere during the summer. It happened, as it was bound to happen, when we were most unprepared for it, and even though I had readied myself for months for that specific eventuality, it hurt nonetheless.

“Oliver! What are you doing here? Renovating the house already?”

He was a man in his late 50s, wearing a white shirt left open at the collar and heavy cologne. He smiled warmly at Oliver as he walked up to us.

“Professor Hennings.” Oliver straightened up a bit and smiled. It was his polite smile, sincere enough that I supposed they were on friendly terms. “I never imagined running into you here, of all places.”

The man sighed theatrically, shaking his head. “My wife insisted she needed new gardening tools, so here we are, on a lovely Saturday afternoon. How’s the missus?”

Oliver hesitated slightly before answering. “We divorced a couple of months ago, I’m afraid, but she’s doing well.”

The man looked taken aback for a moment. “I see,” he said. “It’s a pity, she seemed like a lovely woman.”

Oliver nodded. “She is, she is. We split very amicably, Professor. We were just better off as friends than as partners.” 

“Well, as they say: one lost, a better one found.” He patted Oliver on the shoulder and in doing so his eyes fell on me.

“So who’s this, then? Did you decide you had enough of the fairer sex?” He chuckled lightly at his joke, unaware of how close to home his words hit. I intercepted Oliver’s panicked stare, so quick to disappear behind a fake laugh that I could have imagined it. I hadn’t, of course.

“This is Elio Perlman, Professor Samuel Perlman’s son. Perhaps you recall I stayed with them in Italy a few years ago.”

The man’s eyes widened in surprise. “Elio Perlman! Well, this is certainly a surprise. I haven’t seen you since you were a toddler, I think.”

I had no idea who the man was, but I put up the best smile I could gather and shook his hand. “Pleasure to see you again, then. You know my father?”

“Yes, indeed. Samuel is a very cherished colleague. I was the one who recommended Oliver to him. Say hello to your father on my behalf when you talk to him, will you?”

Before I could answer with more than a nod, he was distracted by a woman waving her hand at him. She was holding a big pot and looked pretty excited about it. 

“Ah, yes. I’d better go help my wife. It was lovely meeting you both, boys. Have a nice day, eh?”

We watched him walk away in silence, waited until he disappeared behind an aisle. I turned to Oliver, then. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Who is he, again?” I asked, and I thought my voice felt normal. Oliver flinched anyway.

“He’s my old advisor, the one who tutored my PhD dissertation,” he muttered.

I nodded. I had guessed, I just wanted confirmation.

“He seems like a nice person to work with,” I remarked lightly. Threading softly. 

“I cannot tell him, Elio.” Oliver spoke quietly but firmly. He didn’t have to clarify what he was referring to. 

“I wasn’t going to ask you to.” I meant it, I really did. I understood the situation, I had no illusions about how we would go about dealing with it. But my words came out flat, and they were not enough to hide everything buried under them. Oliver turned to me and spoke in hurried hushes, as if he was begging me to accept it.

“I can’t, Elio. You know I can’t. I wish nothing better than to tell the world we are together, but it’s—”

He was struggling to find the words. I ended his sentence for him, the tiniest mercy. “It’s the world that doesn’t want to listen.”

He nodded, defeated. “The department is a very traditional environment, even at the best of times they would not accept it easily. And with all that’s going on right now, it wouldn’t just be frowned upon. I think they might actually try to find a way to fire me.”

“I get it, Oliver. I know you can’t and I know why. I’m not going to force your hand, not on this. But it sucks.”

He nodded. There wasn’t much more to add.

*

We went back to his flat mostly in silence, both lost in our thoughts. It was bound to happen, I kept telling myself. It was bound to happen that we ran into someone who knew Oliver and he had to lie about us. It was unavoidable. I knew, and I thought I had made my peace with it. We were together, and that was all that mattered. If the rest of the world didn’t want to see it, it could turn the other way. But it wouldn’t, would it? The world was intent on keeping its eyes wide open, fixed straight ahead, judging and despising. As I watched the city pass by outside the window of the car, I realised I was drowning in anger and sorrow. It wasn’t fair. What we had was beautiful, and pure, and sincere. It was worth celebrating, it was worth being shared.  Keeping it secret, outright lying about us, felt like we were hiding some disgusting crime. But we could not change the world barging in and demanding its understanding. Not alone, and not when people like us were dying by the thousands. I meant it when I had told Oliver I understood. Looking at his reflection in the glass, I wondered, not for the first time, how hard it must have been for him, growing up in a small town with conservative parents. I had never asked and he had never offered to tell me. I knew I was not his first, but that was pretty much the extent of it. Oliver was looking straight ahead at the road, his face unusually blank. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles had turned white. I took him in, turning my head toward him, took in his forlorn eyes, his straight shoulders that screamed of uneasiness, and my heart broke a bit for him. It was not his fault. He must have known I would never blame him. He must have, I thought, but I still placed my hand over one of his, slowly easing his grip on the wheel. 

“We’re fine,” I whispered. “We are fine, Oliver.”

*

I waited until we were in the flat before I dared ask him.

“Does anyone know about you, apart from Sarah?”

He stiffened and turned to look at me. “Why do you want to know?”

I shrugged. “I’ve been wondering.”

He gave me a long stare, then sighed. He let himself fall heavily onto the sofa, rubbing his face. “Not really, no.”

I sat down next to him, then rested my head on his lap, looking up at him. His fingers threaded through my hair as he stared into the distance. 

“None of your friends know you also like men?”

“No.”

“Then who do you talk to about it?”

“I don’t.” He shook his head. “It’s not like there was much to say before you came along, anyway.”

I huffed in disbelief. “I know I wasn’t your first, no need to pretend otherwise.”

He almost smiled at that. “I— dabbled. Enough to understand and accept I liked men and women equally. Nobody stuck around, though. And nobody mattered enough that I felt the need to talk about them to somebody.” 

We were quiet for a while after that. I could understand it. I, too, had never felt the need to discuss things openly before him. But then again, if I had wanted to, I knew there were people I could talk to. And that, I decided, made all the difference.

“Do you think they would mind?”

“My friends, you mean?” He took my foot into his hands, massaged it distractedly as he came up with an answer. “I don’t know. It isn’t something we have ever discussed.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, though?”

He hesitated a bit. “They’re my friends.” Which meant that yes, he’d like to know that they’d be accepting, and no, he’d rather not know they might not be.

I nodded, my head brushing against his thighs. “I think I’d like to meet them, Oliver. But you don’t have to introduce me as your partner.”

“Just a friend from Italy?”

“Yeah. And when you are ready you’ll tell them. Or not.”

“Not going to go the old ‘if they don’t accept you for who you are they don’t deserve you?’”

“No. Although it’s true. But you still need your friends, Oliver, even if they might be prejudiced.”

“They might not be. They’re decent people. I just — we’ve never really spoken about it.”

“No need to rush things then.” I got hold of his hand, kissed it lightly. Thank you, I was implying with that brush of my lips, for talking to me about this. He stroked my cheek in return. “You should meet mine, too.”

“Your friends?”

“Yeah, mostly people from Juilliard. We’re a queer lot, I must warn you.”

I could sense his eyebrows raising. “And when you say queer you mean..?”

I waved my hand in dismissal. “Queer as in weird, queer as in not straight. Most of us, at least. It must be the penchant for the arts.”

He huffed lightly in response, and I smiled at him. “It might do you well to hang out with them, anyway.”

“Why do you say that?”

I sat up before answering, took his hand, kissed it again. You might not like what I’m about to say but you need to hear it anyway, this one meant. “Because it’s nice to have people around from whom you don’t have to hide all the time.”

I stopped him before he could protest. “Just think about it, alright? Worst case scenario you don’t like them and I’ll have to find new friends.”

He rolled his eyes. “You know I’d never ask you to do that.”

I smiled at him and held out a hand to help him stand. “Yeah, of course I do.”

He stood willingly, wrapping his arms around me, hugging me tight, burying his face in my neck. 

And after a while, he whispered, “Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter didn't feel too awkward. It took a long time to come out decent enough to be posted, and I'm still not 100% convinced about it. We'll see where this goes.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I'm so sorry for taking so long to update. Just let me say, don't let people trick you into believing doing a PhD is fun.  
I'm approaching the deadline for my dissertation and I just can't focus on anything - not even the dissertation, lol. It's just constant hindering anxiety. Always. Eh, it'll pass. The world essentially imploding isn't particularly helping, either.   
Just stay safe, people, and fight for what you believe in any way you can.

She would become a pillar in my life, later on, but back in the last months of 1986, she was still only a classmate, and a very dear friend. She was also a magnificent pianist, gifted in ways I could never be. She played uniquely, deceptively. Perched on the bench, inconspicuous behind the grand piano, you could barely see her head moving with the melody. She was a tiny woman, so quiet that one barely noticed her in a room. She exploited that in her favour: whenever she sat at the piano, nobody expected the spell she cast with the delicate strokes of her fingers. Oh, she could do powerful pieces, she could convey arrogance, and force, and excitement, but she did so with such subtle movements that one could only marvel at the pure majesty she infused in everything she played. She was in every piece; you could feel her presence in the music. It was not interpretation, it was ownership. It was a matter of beauty that deserved worship. Enough that I was composing for her. Abigail. 

We had met on our very first day at Juilliard, bonded over a shared love for new renditions of Bach. Music was one of the few things she was comfortable discussing with strangers. We had an easy friendship, made of long nights at the piano, even longer nights studying together, and the occasional confession when something was simply too much to be left undiscussed. She was the only one of my American friends who knew the full extent of my story with Oliver. I was the only one who knew how her father used to beat her until he got killed in a pub brawl. Very late one night, drunk on music and exhaustion, she had confessed how relieved she had felt when they had broken the news to her. I had held her tight against me for hours as she cried. She had done the same for me more than once since then.

We pushed each other constantly when it came to art; we made sure never to pressure the other into talking about something we were not ready to discuss. So when I came back to the States that summer of 1986, happier than I had ever been in her presence, she saw right through me but she did not ask.

It was that, more than anything else, that made me go to her after that day at Home Depot.

She had just finished practising, alone in one of the small rooms at Juilliard, and she was still sitting at the piano when I joined her. She looked at me with level eyes, unfazed, and let her fingers play out a soft tune while I chose my words carefully. It wasn’t that I was angry, or hurt. Or perhaps I was both, but I didn’t want to admit it. I felt hollow, but then again, I suppose that is pretty much the only emotion one can feel when one refuses to acknowledge anger and pain. That flatness that pervades everything, as if you could not conjure up a reaction to anything, lest you’d end up exploding.

I stood silent for quite a long time, and still she did not ask. She kept her fingers on the piano, the rhythm even and soothing, and she let me find my tempo. So I told her everything, from the very beginning, the loathing, the regret, my foolish attempt at staying away. I told her about Sarah, about Milan. I told her about our lives intermingling here in New York, about not finding words good enough to explain what I felt about him. Love was not enough, I told her. It was much more than that. And then, on a sigh, I told her about having to hide it, and not being able to do anything about it.

She listened, as she was bound to do, with an impassive air and an unfocused gaze. I knew by then that there were infinite layers beneath that blank face. 

“What are you going to do now?” she asked when it was clear I had exhausted the flood of words I had just let out.

“I told him he should meet my friends.”

“And?”

I shrugged. “I think he's worried he won’t fit in.”

“Won’t he?”

I had not even considered the possibility. I didn’t have a large group of friends in the States and they were easy enough to go along with. Nobody too weird, nobody too reckless. We were artists alright, but not of the kind prone to excess — at least, not of the kind that would actually be risky. And everybody always loved Oliver. 

“He’s one of those people you cannot help but like, Abbie. You should have seen my friends in Italy when they met him for the first time. They wouldn’t stop bugging me for news about him.”

“Then I don’t quite see the problem. Bring him along next time we meet up.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how easy it’ll be for him to be in public with a group of people that are unmistakably queer.”

“It doesn’t have to be in public, you know. We can all meet at mine this Friday, order some pizza so you can complain about it not being Italian enough, and see how things go.”

I loved her for having suggested something that had been on my mind for a while, although I had been too bashful to ask for it directly. 

“Don’t bother pretending the thought has never crossed your mind, by the way.”

I had to chuckle at that. “Yeah, alright. It seemed rude to plan a party at yours without you having some input into it, though. I feel much better pretending it was your idea rather than acknowledging you're humouring me because I am ever so transparent under your eyes.”

She actually smiled at that. “You really are, Perlman. But I don’t mind it a bit. Just make sure you bring your boyfriend around. I’ve heard so much about him it’s time I actually put a face on the name.”

*

Friday night did, indeed, happen. Oliver and I were the last to arrive at the flat, which was small enough to feel rather crowded with seven people in it. My friends were all crammed in the sitting room, Abigail and her flatmate Jenny sprawled on their sofa while Ronnie, Cooper and Mary sat on the floor around the coffee table, arguing over the menu to choose the toppings of the pizzas. It made introductions a very underwhelming affair, with a quick ‘this is Oliver’ eliciting a round of nods and hellos quickly drowned in renewed bickering. I felt him relax at my side as he took in the people in the room and made up his mind about them. I saw his smile become more genuine, his shoulders losing their stiffness. Whatever deep worry he had felt about this, he had just let go of it, and I felt myself do the same. Not ten minutes later, he was chatting animatedly with Cooper and Jenny about the latest episode of  _ Murder, She Wrote, _ looking completely at ease sitting crosslegged on a throw pillow on the floor. 

I watched him work his magic over pizza, chuckling with the others as he relayed an anecdote about his time in Italy, charming them all without even noticing. Oliver loved being liked. He thrived on the knowledge that people thought well of him, he liked the awareness that he could have pretty much anyone he wanted as long as he kept up his friendly smile and contagious laugh. He was a quiet man most days, often lost in his own thoughts, but he still revelled in the attention of the crowd. It was what made him a great teacher, that air of theatricality and that easy humour that glinted in his eyes.

That night, sitting among my friends, no trace of unease as he delighted my friends with story after story of his journeys, his students, his books, he was magnificent. I sat quietly through dinner and I drank in his jovial smile, his carefree stance, and I envied him the ease with which he had been accepted by my friends, and them the fact they were on the receiving end of his attention. 

It surprised me, the fierce sense of possessiveness that overtook me as I watched him with my friends. Rationally, I knew he was just having fun. Perhaps he was even making an effort to be on his best behaviour, just to make sure my friends liked him enough not to question our relationship. And I was ever so grateful that they were all getting along. Yet, I had to fight the urge to scoot over to him and put an arm around his waist. I had to squeeze my hands under my thighs to avoid grabbing him by the lapels of his shirt and claim his mouth as mine. I had the ridiculous, and yet all too real, desire to brand him. But I did nothing of the kind, hiding behind easy laughter and banter, and by the end of the night, I was quite proud of my self-control, if a bit puzzled it had been needed at all.

I should have known, given my record, that I had not been as sly as I had fancied myself being, but it still took me by surprise when I found myself plastered against the door of Oliver’s flat the moment it closed behind us, being kissed within an inch of my life. It threw me so off-balance that my hands flayed wildly in the air before they found their way to Oliver’s shoulders, pulling him closer, encouraging him. It was an onslaught, and it felt quite like an act of war.  _ Cartago delenda est,  _ supplied my brain, and I had to admit I wouldn’t mind being the city in that scenario, as long as Oliver was Cato. Destroy me, raze me to the ground, I don’t care so long as it is you doing it.

We were panting against each other, chasing friction without restraint, unconcerned that someone might hear us as they walked past Oliver’s landing. It was unadulterated sex, of the wild and demanding kind we had not felt the need to indulge in since our return to the States. We had been making sweet, passionate love for weeks, safe in our little private world, certain of our feelings, of belonging. Flush against Oliver’s door, the smell of pizza and other people still clinging to our clothes, the need to claim came back to us. 

“I could feel your eyes on me the whole night, Elio,” Oliver whispered as he bit my earlobe lightly. I heard the smirk in the hushed tone of his words. “What were you thinking?”

I gasped as he moved to my neck, sinking his teeth lightly into it before soothing the mark with his tongue. I had no answer, nor words with which to compose one. I went pliant under his touch, baring my neck in a clear request for more. He chuckled against my skin. 

“Tell me what you were thinking, Elio.”

I exhaled, and it came out as a shudder. “I wanted to claim you.”

He hummed, the sound vibrating against my chest. “Is that all?”

I hated that he could still be coherent, still push me for answers. Wasn’t what I had wanted clear enough? 

“Oliver—” I was past caring that it came out as a whine. I was aching to get naked, to get my hands all over him. I pushed against him, begging with my body, as well as with my voice.

“Is that all?” 

“I wanted you to claim me, too,” I admitted through gritted teeth. I despised the confession, as much as I anticipated the outcome. 

Oliver’s breath hitched as he heard my words, unable to keep up pretending to be unaffected, to be completely in control.

“I can do that,” he breathed, his eyelashes fluttering closed against the skin of my neck, the tiniest form of contact sending shivers down my spine. 

I grabbed him by the chin, crashing our mouths together once more, hard enough that our teeth clashed and I felt the taste of blood. I had to turn my face away to catch my breath, panting as if I was about to pass out of exertion. It felt unabashedly raw, and powerful, and heady. I looked straight into Oliver’s eyes. “Then do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to update again this month, but I have. to. finish. my. fricking. dissertation.  
As soon as I'm done with that, I'll pick up the pace again, I promise.  
Thank you for reading and commenting <3


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick and somewhat crack-ish chapter. I hope it's not too on-the-nose.  
Enjoy!

A few days later, Oliver told me, voice suspiciously casual, that he was meeting his friends the following week. He took a deep breath, hesitated a fraction of a second, and then asked if I wanted to tag along.

I nodded as I remembered our talk, what I had told him we could do. “I'll be your exceedingly amazing Italian friend,” I said, smiling a bit. It wasn’t even a sad smile. I didn’t love the idea of not being open with his friends, but then again, they were his friends. Oliver would have to tell them in his own time.

He huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes, rumpling my hair and then placing a kiss on my head, but I could sense the relief behind his amused expression. I would not push him on this, I promised myself.

It became part of our routine, going out with my friends, his friends. Oliver’s folks were essentially just Eric and Josh, plus the odd girlfriend that never lasted more than a couple of weeks. And Sarah, of course. Having her there when I first met them made things surprisingly easy. We talked about all things Italy, and my studies, and Sarah’s job at the hospital, and her nasty colleague who mistreated patients, and Oliver’s new courses, and I found out that Eric and Josh were both professors of film studies and never, ever ran out of conversation topics. They were easy people to be around, and I was grateful for that. If I found myself with nothing to say, I could rest assured that they would fill the silence without even noticing. Oliver loved them dearly, and I was sure they did, too. Still, I didn’t push him.

It was the week after my twenty-first birthday, a cold Friday night that hinted at the possibility of snow, when Sarah brought someone new with her for the first time.

David was a physiotherapist and, she stressed forcefully upon sitting next to Eric, a friend.

I liked him immediately. He had that easy smile of a person who doesn’t take himself too seriously, and doesn’t take offence easily. He shook hands and nodded his head as names were exchanged, and chuckled when Josh started the conversation saying, “So,  _ friend  _ David, how did you meet our dearest Sarah, here?”

She should have known better than giving Eric, Josh, and Oliver such good bait, and I saw her realise it as the scowl on her face deepened at every ‘friend David’ they threw into a sentence. I kept to myself for most of the evening, studying how they interacted, how their bodies seemed to lean naturally towards each other. I wasn’t really sure they were together yet, but it was clear they were headed that way. I was truly happy to see her so interested in another person, and David looked positively smitten with her. I said as such to Oliver as we smoked outside, leaving the others to chat at the table.

He hummed in agreement and grinned. “She likes him an awful lot, too. They make a cute pair, don’t you think?”

We stared at them through the window, Eric and Josh laughing, David smiling, Sarah looking ready to bite someone’s head off.

“She’s looking rather murderous right now, to be honest. You guys should probably drop the ‘friend David’ act.”

He chuckled. “We’re nasty like that, I'm afraid. But I’ll see if I can make Eric and Josh tone it down a bit.”

We returned to the table just in time to hear Sarah say, voice loud enough to carry over the noise of a busy pub, “He is a friend, Eric. Just a friend. Just. A. Fucking. Friend.” Her hands were flying around in a clear sign of irritation and I realised she was actually, truly angry. She looked at us as we took our seats again and gestured at me. “A friend, like Elio,” she spat out.

Eric, who truly could not take a hint that night, laughed. “Darling, if you put it like that, I’d sooner believe Elio is Oliver’s boyfriend.”

And she would later blame it on the alcohol, and the anger, and she would apologise to Oliver and to me for letting her mouth run free, but at that moment she just pinned Eric with a frosty stare and said, “Well, then you’d get at least one thing right.”

Eric, bless his soul, frowned in confusion and asked, “What do you mean? Of course he’s not his boyfriend, right?”

He half-turned to us as if the question didn’t need answering. By then I had long forgotten how to breathe. Oliver was frozen on the spot. There was a dreadful pause, enough to make everyone catch up on the fact that an answer might, indeed, be worth being given, and heard. Then Sarah muttered “shit,” and Oliver, “he is.”

And after the longest silence, long enough for me to start fearing the worst and for Oliver to dig his fingers into my thigh so hard I knew there would be bruises, Josh grabbed Eric’s arm, looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted a second head, and said, half in disbelief half in awe, “You’re the Mysterious Italian Girl.”

And a beat later, Eric followed with: “Fucking hell, he’s the Mysterious Italian Girl.”

And Oliver groaned and hid his face in his hands, but I could see he was smiling a bit behind his fingers, and a quick glance at Sarah confirmed she was sharing the relief I was feeling. I knew, then, that things would be alright.

Josh and Eric didn’t take long to connect the dots. In all honesty, it wasn’t all that difficult to put the pieces together once one knew that Oliver and I were a couple. 

“Oh my God, Sarah, is that why you two got divorced?” Eric blurted out, and for the first time since I had known her, she seemed not to have an answer ready. She kicked Oliver under the table and hissed, “A little help here, please.”

It seemed to shake him out of his moment of commiseration, because he lifted his head and looked around, quickly sweeping his gaze over the people sitting with us. Then he shrugged and said, “Yes?”

And I didn’t have to express my mental groan, because the rest of the table seemed to utter it in unison. 

“Did you actually say that as a question, Oliver?” sighed Sarah, rolling her eyes a bit.

He shook his head, looking sheepish. “Yeah, no, alright. Yes, it was the main reason we got a divorce. Please don’t make me feel worse about it than I already do.”

Sarah shrugged, smiling a bit. “It was better this way for us both, right?” And it didn’t escape me that she shifted closer to David as she said that, nor that the man seemed completely unfazed by the news. She had picked him well.

Oliver smiled in return, and I saw his shoulder relax a bit as he realised that his friends had found out about us and were not running away screaming obscenities. 

“Oh, but isn’t this a perfect romance, though?” mused Josh, mischief twinkling in his eyes. “Two star-crossed lovers and all that? The torment, the pining, the longing. I mean, now that I know it was Elio, Oliver, I can see why you were so distraught all those years ago. He’s a pretty cool guy to leave behind on a sunny Italian beach or whatever.”

“Josh—” Oliver muttered, sorting no effect at all.

“Ollie here was inconsolable for weeks, even if he wouldn’t tell us what had happened. We got the broken heart part down alright, didn’t we Eric? Although not so much the mysterious girl bit.”

Oliver had a pained look on his face and I moved my hand to his forearm, squeezing it reassuringly. 

“I was inconsolable, too, after he’d left,” I volunteered, lightening the sentence with a shrug and a small smile. “I cried myself to sleep every night for weeks. Our housekeeper was worried I would never recover. She was rather perplexed, too, that I would take it so badly. She adored Oliver, but he was just another of my father’s students, after all. It all felt rather excessive to her. She’d move around me muttering  _ sti artisti _ — these artists — all the time, shaking her head. It drove me so crazy it actually made me stop sulking.”

Oliver huffed out a laugh. “That is so like Mafalda.”

I smiled. “It really is.”

“So what then? How did you end up together again?”

Oliver threw a look at Sarah, who shrugged noncommittally. She was practically sitting in David’s lap, but Eric and Josh hadn’t even noticed. I hid my smirk behind my glass.

“We just— reconnected this summer, that’s all. Decided we’d rather not be miserable our entire lives.”

Eric huffed. “C’mon, Oliver! Where are the juicy details? The torrid affair, the secret getaways, Sarah finding out and tearing you a new one…”

Sarah snorted but didn’t comment, and I turned to look at Oliver more directly. I had never asked how things had actually gone down between them. 

“She didn’t, as a matter of fact. She was very supportive, of all things. I guess the truth is we’re back together thanks to her.”

She raised her glass at Oliver in a silent toast, and he clinked his glass against hers. 

“You owe me big time, Ollie,” she said with a smirk, and then winked at me. I raised my glass in her direction, too. We did owe her everything.

Josh shook his head. “I can’t believe y’all. You have the best poker faces in the city. You were living right in the middle of a soap opera and kept it all from us.”

Oliver shrugged, but he looked bashful. “I was working up the courage to tell you, honestly. I didn’t want to keep it all a secret.” He turned to me and slipped his hand in mine, our fingers interlacing. “To keep us a secret.” His blue eyes spoke volumes as they locked into mine. They held an apology, and the last flickers of guilt, and regret as much as relief, pride, and love. I lost myself in them, in all those things we didn't need to say out loud because they were just plain for us to see.

“Well, honestly, Josh,” Eric’s voice cut through our little reverie, “I don’t know how we could miss this. They look positively gone on each other.”

Sarah smirked at that. “You should have seen them as they tried to hide that they were back together this summer. They were thoroughly transparent. I am still wondering how they managed to keep it relatively secret three years ago.”

I hid my face behind my glass, feeling myself starting to blush. “I think everyone knew before we did, to be honest. They were just gracious enough not to bring it up.”

A rather alarming grin spread on Josh's face. “Sadly, we have no such niceties in big ol’ America. So, tell us, Elio, how did you manage to get into Oliver’s pants? Or was it the other way around? And spare no details, we have three years to catch up on.” And as he planted his elbows on the table, hands crossed under his chin, he stared at us with such an eager expression that , despite the awkwardness, we did tell them our story, from the very beginning, leaving out nothing but the parts that were ours only to treasure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think, but I might be completely off the mark, that we're about two chapters from the end.  
Stay tuned, and as always, thanks for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting :)


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People, I am SO sorry for the long wait. Just-- don't do a PhD. Listen to me, just don't. It's nothing like "Your insights are persuasive" and it's all "Look at this drivel. It doesn't make any sense to me." And there is a notable lack of summer romance in Italy.

Winter sneaked up on us unnoticed as we settled into our new lives together. Things were good, really good. Oliver had his job at the university, his colleagues and students who adored him, and his research on Heraclitus. I had my lectures at Juilliard, my long rehearsal sessions with Abigail, and my first, serious attempts at original composition. We went through life with a lucid sort of eagerness, chasing our next success, curious to see where things would lead us. 

By mid-December, Oliver was drowning in end-of-term papers and I was trying to cope with the pressure and anxiety that only the Juilliard Winter Recital could cause me. I spent endless hours rehearsing, working with my teachers, with Abbie. As the date approached, I retreated into myself, chasing that elusive connection with the music. I repeated the same two pieces over and over again, demanding perfection and always falling short. The night before the event, fingers and back sore from the excessive practice and mind full of dreadful scenarios, I gave up on my self-imposed isolation and went to Oliver’s.

When I arrived, I was almost vibrating with anxiety, second-guessing my abilities, my music, my career choices. Oliver took a look at me and dragged me into a tight embrace. He soothed me with slow strokes on my back, with feathery kisses all over my face. He held me until he felt my body relax against his, settling into his warmth. 

“Play for me tomorrow night,” he whispered against my hair. “Don’t think of your audience, of your teachers. Think of me. You’ll be safe: I will love anything you play, any way you do it.”

I huffed against his chest. “Easy as that, uh?”

“Yes, easy as that. I already know that you are an amazing pianist. There’s no need to prove that to me. Just play with your soul, as you did back at the villa, and everyone else will know, too.”

My hands grabbed the back of his shirt, scrunching up the fabric. I was drowning in conflicting emotions, sheer terror and unabashed tenderness fighting for predominance over my mind. With a sigh, I let out the words that I had struggled so much to keep for myself. “I can’t stop thinking about all the ways this can go wrong. All the mistakes, the embarrassment, the wasted occasion. There will be producers, agents in the crowd. It’s the main point of the event. I can’t screw this up.”

Oliver tightened his embrace a fraction, just enough to ground me to reality. “You won’t, Elio, trust me on this.”

“But what if I do?” I whispered, feeling all of my twenty-one years — that is to say, feeling too young to face this all on my own.

“If you do, you’ll get back on your feet in no time, and you’ll find other opportunities. Or other opportunities will find you. Elio, you are too talented for people not to notice. This is not your last chance, it’s your first. And I am sure you’ll ace it, but even if you don’t, there will be plenty others.”

*

That night, we fell into bed unhurriedly, Oliver pushing me gently, taking my mind off everything but his mouth and hands, his skin and smell. He made love to me with intent and intensity, drawing it out as much as possible, lingering on sensations. We fell asleep on sheets soaked in sweat, too spent to care about the mess between our bodies, barely managing to clean up with one of our discarded shirts before slipping out of consciousness. That night, heedless of my insecurities and fears, I slept soundly in the arms of the only person whom I had come to trust with my deepest secrets, my most coveted hopes. 

When I woke up, the same peace of mind that had sent me off to sleep was still lingering, and I felt a sort of resolve that convinced me I could handle whatever happened that night. Oliver was still wrapped around me, weighing me down against the mattress, and I snuggled further into the warmth of our entwined bodies, dozing off for a while longer before getting ready to leave for a last round of rehearsals. 

It was mid-morning by the time I bent over to tie my shoes, skin still soft from a hot shower. Oliver was curled up on the sofa with a pile of essays, a blanket around his shoulders and legs. He looked soft as he sat in his sitting room, unguarded. He seemed at peace with the universe. Indeed, the whole flat felt like a world apart, warm, cottoned, safe. It was his refuge, and mine, too when I needed it.

Then the doorbell rang. 

We both looked at each other with the same confused frown, wondering who might be stopping by unannounced on a Saturday morning. I finished tying up my shoes as he disentangled himself from the blanket and went to answer the door.

I heard his sharp intake of breath as he took in whoever stood on the other side of the door. “Mom? Dad?” He sounded strangled and he quickly cleared his throat. 

“Surprise!” chirped a cheery female voice, which I supposed belonged to Oliver’s mother. Who was standing on her son’s doorstep. As I stood in his living room. From where I had no plausible escape route. I swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat.

“Come in,” I heard Oliver say, his surprise and pleasure clear in his voice. “Come in. I actually have company, let me introduce you.”

Footsteps down the small corridor. I plastered the nicest smile I could muster up onto my face and metaphorically braced for impact.

Oliver’s parents looked, to my surprise, jovial. Where I expected severe stares and a stiff posture I found warm smiles and a relaxed gait. I could see traces of him in his mother’s hair and nose, in his father’s mouth.

They studied me with polite curiosity as Oliver took their coats and scarves, hung them up in the entryway. His father extended his hand first, not waiting for his son to make a proper introduction. 

“I’m John, nice to meet you,” he said cordially.

“Elio, pleasure to meet you, too” I answered back, trying to hide my nerves. 

Oliver’s mother, Catherine, followed suit, shaking my hand with a warm smile. I looked over her shoulder toward Oliver, who had just stepped into the room. He seemed to take a deep breath, as if to steel himself. In the fraction of a second it took for him to actually voice what he had clearly just resolved to say, I realised he wanted to tell them the truth. And I could see the consequences unravelling in front of us: the horror-stricken looks, the disgust, no more warm smiles, no more affection. I could imagine the words that would be thrown our way, the injunctions not to continue with such aberrant behaviour. His mother would be heartbroken. His father dismayed, perhaps offended by the very idea of his son not being as perfect as he wished.

Oliver wanted to tell his parents, and in standing true to us he would lose them irremediably. And, I realised with a start, I could not let that happen. So I locked eyes with him and shook my head as inconspicuously as I could, begging him to understand, begging him not to ruin his relationship with his parents for me. 

I saw him frown, surprise, hurt, and confusion crossing his face as he registered my barely concealed plea.

“Mom, Dad, this is my—” Please, don’t. Please, please don’t. “—my Italian advisor’s son. Elio Perlman. I stayed with his family about three years ago, if you remember.”

I only barely reined in the sigh of relief that wanted to escape my lips as I registered a newfound look of understanding on Oliver’s parents’ faces. Their smiles grew more sincere as his mother went about thanking me for my family’s kindness towards her son, recalling how glad he had been to have the opportunity to study with such a well-known scholar as my father, and to visit Italy at the same time. 

I kept my smile on, nodding at the right times, answering their questions about my country, about my dad, about Oliver’s stay, about my presence in New York.

“Juilliard!” his father echoed when I told them I was studying there. “You must be awfully gifted. It is such a competitive school.”

“He’s performing tonight, actually.” Oliver intervened, and my eyes snapped to him. His face showed no emotion, his voice had no inflexion. I had not seen this side of him for months. I despised that I was the one causing it to show again.

“You are?” Oliver’s mother asked, sounding delighted. “Oh, but it would be wonderful to attend, don’t you think, John?”

“Of course! Wonderful indeed, if it is not too much trouble. We’ve always enjoyed a bit of classical music and we were hoping to have a nice night out with Oliver all the same.”

“I think I can get you tickets for the show,” I found myself saying, seeing an exit and taking it, uncaring of what might lie on the other side of it. “I’ll just confirm it with Oliver as soon as I get to Juilliard.”

I left Oliver with his parents with a promise to call to let him know if they could come, too. He walked me to the door, blank face still in place. 

I hesitated on the doorstep, hating to leave so much unsaid between us. “Oliver—”

He shook his head. “We’ll talk later, Elio. I’ll see you tonight, with or without my parents.”

I nodded, swallowing words that would make him understand, make him see why he couldn’t possibly tell them. Later I would try to explain, I would try to make him realise. Later.

“Elio,” he called after me as I went down the stairs. “You’ll be great tonight. Remember to play for me.”

I nodded again, and we shared a small smile. Things would be alright, somehow.

*

  
“What a marvellous performance, Elio!” Oliver’s mother trilled. 

Her husband nodded next to her. “Very impressive, very impressive.”

I thanked them, still riding high on my success. I had played both pieces exactly as I had meant to, perhaps for the very first time. Not perfectly, and not traditionally, but just as I had wanted them to sound. I was elated, satisfaction and relief fighting for predominance. 

Past them, my eyes met Oliver’s.  _ How was it?  _ They asked silently.  _ Was it as you imagined it? Was it good enough? Good enough for you?  _ Because he had told me to play for him, and I had. 

Oliver just walked up to me and hugged me. “I felt it in my bones, Elio,” he whispered. “Come back to mine tonight, I’m driving my parents back to their hotel from here.”

I nodded. “I’ll see you there later.”

*

The lights in Oliver’s flat were out when I arrived. The afterparty had been fun but exhausting and I was looking forward to finally just breathing and enjoying the quiet peace that followed some truly nerve-wracking weeks.

Oliver was reading in bed, the lamp on his bedside table the only source of light. He looked up as I walked into the room and folded down the covers on my side of the bed, patting the empty space next to him. 

I shed my suit carelessly, settling against him and sighing deeply. Oliver’s body was a familiar shape under my cheek, as it rested on his chest.

We sat like that for a while, not speaking. I could feel Oliver’s eyes on me, pensive, assessing.

“I love you,” he murmured into the silence. It sounded both like a declaration and a question. I turned my head up, looking him in the face. 

“I love you, too,” I answered back, and mine, too, sounded both like a declaration and a question.

Oliver sighed. “My parents already adore you. They wouldn’t stop talking about how talented and charming you are all the way to their hotel.”

I had no ready answer to that. It was what I had wished for. I had hoped his parents liked me, I had hoped to impress them. I wanted their approval, albeit given without full awareness of the implications.

“I wanted to tell them just how much I agree with them.”

“But you didn’t.”

He shook his head.

“Because I asked you not to.”

Another sigh, a long pause. “I don’t get it, Elio. I thought you’d back me on this. I thought you’d appreciate me being honest with them. Isn’t it what you want? For us to live truthfully?”

I hesitated before answering. “I would like nothing better than being able to live with you out in the open. But your parents — they look like nice people. They are. They seem to love you very much. But from what you’ve told me of them… do you really think they’d understand? Do you really think they’d accept that we are together? I don’t want you to have to choose between me and them, and I don’t want to be the reason that makes them cut all ties to you. It’s not fair. You deserve to have your family, you deserve their support and affection. But if you tell them—”

Oliver sat quietly for a long time after that. “Then what should we tell them? That we are friends? And when we move in together, that we are flatmates? Should we just keep pretending for the rest of our lives?”

“I don’t know, Oliver. I don’t want to, but if that’s what it takes for you to have me and your family, then I am willing to do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, the good news is... the next (and last) chapter is almost ready. Expect the epilogue in the next couple of days!  
Thank you for reading, as always!


	25. Chapter 25 - Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it was bound to happen. Here's the epilogue.  
I truly hope it will be an adequate end to this story.  
Enjoy!

Oliver’s parents left after a couple of days, returning to New Hampshire none the wiser about my relationship to their son, and our lives went back to normal. I graduated that summer with flying colours and an unconditional offer to continue at Juilliard as a researcher and teacher’s assistant. I was in early talks with a recording label. Oliver got tenure later that year. That summer we did not go back to Italy; my parents joined us in the States for my graduation and stayed for a month.

Oliver and I moved in together exactly a year after I returned to New York, during the last few days of August 1987. Or rather, I moved into his flat, which had felt like ours from the very beginning. I had insisted on waiting until I could pay my share, and Oliver had not pushed me, but it had been a long time in the making. We told my parents the truth, and they were elated, and we told Oliver’s a washed down version of it, and they were happy that he wasn’t living alone anymore, and that he was being such a good friend, letting me stay at his until I found my own place.

Our careers progressed. Oliver slowly became an authority on Heraclitus and Heidegger’s reading of the Stoics. I slowly, and then overnight, became one of the most renowned composers still alive. It all happened when Abbie released her second studio recording, a compilation of old and new pieces I had written for her, about six years after we graduated from Juilliard together. It took the world of piano music by storm. Ravishing reviews flocked in. Some performers wanted to include my pieces in their recordings. Others wanted me to compose exclusively for them. Hollywood took notice, and soon I was asked to write scores for prospective blockbusters. Abigail was revered as one of the most genius pianists to have graced this earth. It all felt a bit inflated to us, but we took it in stride. We kept working together, we kept each other down to earth, and we kept our art sincere. 

By Hanukkah of 1993, Oliver’s parents had stopped dropping hints about him getting married again, settling down with a nice Jewish woman in a pretty house with the stereotypical white fence. “Been there, done that, Mom,” Oliver would answer every time she asked. “Didn’t work out all that well, did it?” 

She would turn to me, then, looking for support. I had become a fixture at every family event Oliver attended. I was still just his very good friend, who was temporarily living with him until I found a better option, but his parents truly adored me. “Elio,” she would say, pleadingly. “Tell him something. He needs to get out there, he needs to find someone who makes him happy. He cannot end up all alone and old. And you, too. You need to find yourself a nice Jewish woman and start having children. God knows John and I would like to have a few toddlers to spoil in our old age.” 

I would shake my head, smiling apologetically. “Life is good as it is, Catherine. I am happy with what I have. I think Oliver is, too.”

It seemed to me that life was, indeed, as good as it would ever be. After almost a decade, Oliver and I were still desperately in love. We lived together, surrounded by friends that cared for us and supported us. We were still careful not to show our relationship in public, but that suited us. We were affectionate with each other, but we never cared for public displays of affection. Our careers were soaring, each of us distinguishing himself in our respective fields. We had a wonderful relationship with my parents and a surprisingly warm one with Oliver’s. They were, as I had first gathered upon meeting them, good people, if conservative in their opinions. Their views were flawed by tradition, religion, and their own brand of strict upbringing. Oliver and I, after much consideration, had resolved to just keep the more intimate details of our relationship from them.

Things had worked out for over seven years. So, by Hanukkah of 1993, when Oliver’s mother asked me to help her peel the potatoes as Oliver and his father set the table, I had stopped expecting the proverbial other shoe to drop. 

“I think, Elio,” she said out of the blue, not looking up from the potato she was working on, “I have figured out why my son won’t marry again. Or you won’t at all.” 

I looked at her, unable to mask my surprise and, perhaps, the sudden dread I felt. She did not wait for me to come up with an answer.

“I think I haven’t seen it for a long time because it’s just not something I ever thought I would have to deal with in first person. I didn’t even suspect it. But you’ve been living together for ages, and you are consistently happy, and the way you just — the way you sometimes look at each other...” She paused, then, meeting my eyes.

I swallowed, trying to find words good enough. “What’s brought this up now?” I asked her. I didn’t deny it. I didn’t have it in me to outright lie to her.

“The son of my dear friend Carla is —” she looked mighty uncomfortable. “He has a _ partner_. A male partner. Carla was so shocked. Her husband threw a fit when they told him. He threw his son out, told him never to come back.” Silence lay heavy between us. “Carla is divorcing him.”

“I am sorry,” I said, because I had no idea what else to say. It came out more like a question.

Catherine shook her head. “I am not. Carla’s husband is a right bastard. She’ll be better off without him. She told him that he had no right to kick her son out of the house her family had built for them, that if he was so disgusted by him being in love then he was the one who should leave. She was very brave.”

I nodded, sensing she was not finished. 

“Why haven’t you told us?” 

I didn’t want to hurt her, but I thought she knew all the same. She was just looking for confirmation. “Would you have accepted it? And John?” I asked, as delicately as possible.

“So it is true, then? I _ am _right?”

I took a deep breath, stared at her for a long moment. “Yes, you are.”

She stared back, processing the piece of information. “For how long?”

“Since long before you met me. Since the day Oliver and I saw each other in Italy the first time he visited.”

“Before he got married?”

“Yes.”

“And ever since?”

I nodded, then rectified, because I understood belatedly what she was not asking. “We were together that summer, then he left and we didn’t speak for three years. Oliver got divorced after we met again.”

“Does Sarah know?”

“Yes. She was the one who actually pushed us back together when they stayed with my parents back in 1986.”

“You’ve been together for seven years.” _ And I didn’t realise it _, her tone added. “Do your parents know?”

Her question took me by surprise. “They do. They probably knew before Oliver and I did.”

“And they’re OK with it?”

I heard her frailty hidden behind that question, her uncertainty. It reminded me of the way my mother used to ask whether my classmates, too, had struggled to pass a test I had failed, in order to decide whether to punish me or not. “They are. They love Oliver just as much —” I forced it out, swallowing my anxiety. “— Just as much as I do.”

She nodded, then. “I know you do. I know he loves you, too. I just underestimated how much.”

I hesitated before speaking again. “Are you OK with this?”

She sighed, went back to peeling the potato she was holding. “You love each other. This should be a good enough reason for me to be OK with it, right? And John and I really adore you, Elio. You’re so good for our Oliver. But it’s just— it is hard to accept that my son is not the person I thought he was. It’s hard to accept he’s chosen a life I cannot fully understand. And I fear John’s reaction when he finds out.”

My silence was eloquent enough, because she looked at me sideways and just added, “I won’t be able to hide it from him. And he deserves to know.”

Slowly, I nodded. “You have to talk to Oliver about this. You have to tell him that you know. And that you accept it, to some extent. It’s more than he has ever hoped for.”

I saw her expression change, crumpling a bit. “He should never have had to keep you a secret. He should have known he could tell me. What sort of parent makes her son think he has to hide that he’s in love, that he’s found the right person?”

“It’s— Catherine, don’t be too hard on yourself. He has made his peace with it a long time ago. We would have been fine with just going on as we have so far. We are happy. We really, truly are. But Oliver will be relieved to know you know.”

A long silence stretched as she took it all in. “Are we the reason Oliver got married to Sarah? Because he wanted to please us?”

“I don’t think I can answer this question for him.”

She smiled at me, then, her usually crooked smile tinged with regret. “I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?”

I smiled back, hesitantly. “Oliver did what he thought was right at the time. We weren’t supposed to meet again, you know? The only reason I was in Italy as they were was that the airline made a booking mistake and I had to go back home three weeks earlier than expected.”

She seemed to debate with herself whether to ask a question. “Did Sarah really bring you two back together? While on holiday? In Italy?” There was a shade of disbelief in her voice which made me chuckle a bit.

“Yes, she really, truly did. She came to me one night and essentially told me Oliver had explained what had happened between us. For a moment I thought she would garrote me. Instead, she told me not to let him run away again. And I didn’t. But to be honest, he hasn’t tried to either.”

She shook her head, letting out a deep sigh. “Lord, I’ve always liked that woman.”

“The feeling is mutual. You know she’s still our friend.”

She hummed in agreement. “And she found herself a lovely man that makes her very happy, so it worked out for her, too, I guess.”

I nodded, allowing myself to relax a fraction. Oliver’s mom seemed unexpectedly zen about all this. Conflicted, understandably, and full of questions, but not irrevocably disgusted. 

“I will tell John myself, I think, after you two leave later. He’ll have the time to digest the news before we see you again, at least.”

“Are you sure, Catherine? We can stick around, try to explain.”

She shook her head. “He’ll listen to me. He always does. I think he has the ability to come to terms with this, given enough time. But it won’t be easy for a while.”

“Will you tell Oliver before we go, then? I don’t know if he should find out about it from me.”

She nodded. “I’ll tell him later. And I’ll find the time to talk to my son about all this.”

“Good.” I let out a long sigh, sensing that the worst was over. “You know, it has not escaped my notice that this is the second time that one of Oliver’s women corners me about our relationship. Please, tell me he doesn’t have a secret sister, ‘cause I don’t think I can do this a third time.”

She laughed, then, a sincere and amused laugh. “As far as I know, Oliver is an only child. But I must admit, you are much easier to approach, Elio. You have an air of honesty about you that just screams that you’ll not put up much of a fight.”

“Well, I think I’ll take that as a compliment, even though I don’t think it was meant as one.”

She chuckled again.

“Seriously, though, Catherine. Are we good? Is it — is there anything we can do to make it alright?”

She sighed. “It’ll be alright. It mostly is, already. I just need to wrap my head around it, and make John accept it, too. For what’s worth, I don’t know that it would be if it weren’t you, Elio. You, I can understand loving through all the difficulties.”

I had no words to answer her, but she didn’t need them to understand what it meant to me to hear her say that. 

***

Oliver’s father did not take the news very well. It took him months to come to terms with the fact that no, we were not just two friends living together. To this date, I wonder how much of his indignation came from us being together and how much from us having successfully played him for the better part of a decade.

He was a proud man, John, and some nasty words were exchanged between him and Oliver. It led to months of strained phone calls from his mother, cautiously asking how things were, still working out how to talk about all this without tiptoeing around the subject. 

His father caved only when Oliver showed up on his doorstep alone, unannounced, to talk to him face to face. He hasn’t told me what went on that day yet. Catherine only shook her head when I tried to get the truth out of her. I suspect that a lot of shouting was involved, and some more nasty words from both sides, but after that moment his father resumed a civil, if somewhat frosty, relationship with us, and his mother overcame her own set of insecurities. Once the drama was over, things went back to being remarkably the same as before.

Every year, we spent Hanukkah with Oliver’s parents and a couple of months at the villa with mine during the summer. We travelled a bit, either for fun or for work. Oliver followed me on one of my tours, taking a sabbatical year as we moved around Europe and Asia. I stayed in Greece with him when he spent a semester there as a visiting scholar. 

We became unofficial uncles to Abigail’s firstborn, Amber. For many years, she graced our flat with delighted squeals and piercing cries. We loved, and still love, her to bits. She is, ironically, one of the most tone-deaf people we know, but, at fifteen, she is already fluent in ancient Greek. Abigail never fails to pout about it. Oliver simply smirks back at her over his glasses. 

He’s 52, now. His hair is still the same dark blond hue that mesmerized me back in Italy, during a summer lost in time. His eyes and mouth are surrounded by laugh lines, the only sign of time passing for him. We still make a striking couple, our friends tell us. We’ve been together for twenty-five years. We are still as happy as we were on the first day.

It’s the end of June and we are packing. Our flight to Italy is in two days. My mother is waiting for us to join her at the villa. She has been spending most of her time there since my father died. Oliver’s mother is coming with us this time. She is still mourning her husband, too. 

So we are packing, as we have so many times before, going through the steps with familiar ease. We have the radio on in the background. It’s playing “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull and a bunch of other people I always forget for the third time in under an hour. I’m swaying with the music.

A truck honks for a few unbearable seconds, drowning out all the other sounds. When it stops, the radio anchor is reading the latest news. Oliver and I listen half-heartedly. Civil unrest in Syria. Mario Draghi is the new President of the European Central Bank. A tropical storm hits the Philippines, displacing hundreds of thousands. And then… _ With a historical vote earlier today, the New York Senate has legalised same-sex marriage in the state, assuring passage of the legislation and making New York the largest state to approve such legislation since California reversed its legalization in 2008. _

We look up from our suitcases at the same time. Our eyes meet over our bed. We stare at each other as the anchorman goes on. We don’t hear a single word he says.

Then, Oliver speaks. Oliver, eyes still locked on mine, whispers his name.

And I answer back the only possible way. “Elio,” I say. “Yes.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must admit that I am quite emotional right now. This story took up so much of my free time for months, but I loved every second I spent working on it.  
Thank you so, so much to everyone who has read until the end, who left a comment or a kudo, who supported me when I got stuck or felt very unsure about the story. I cannot begin to explain what it meant to me to see people engage with my story, to read your heartwarming comments after every chapter.
> 
> I will soon begin another fic with Elio and Oliver, perhaps taking into consideration _Find Me_, so, as we say in Italy, _questo non è un addio ma un arrivederci_. This is not goodbye, it's "see you soon", or rather, read you soon.  
In the meantime, you can find me on [Tumblr](https://tinanovels.tumblr.com/), and if you'd like to read something else I've written, check out [Reprise](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1450030) or [Time Inconsequential](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20928923).

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
